


Masks

by fractalserpentine, HopeofDawn



Series: A Stitch In Time [6]
Category: Legacy of Kain
Genre: BDSM, Blood Drinking, Dom/sub, Dubious Consent, Genital Torture, M/M, Vampire Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-06
Updated: 2011-03-06
Packaged: 2017-10-16 03:23:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 24,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/167899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fractalserpentine/pseuds/fractalserpentine, https://archiveofourown.org/users/HopeofDawn/pseuds/HopeofDawn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Raziel plots strategy, only to have Kain take exception to his plans.</p><p><i>“Think, Raziel. Your antagonists’ fundamental assumptions, their fatal conjectures – what are they?</i>”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Masks

**Author's Note:**

> A bit of background explanation: this was originally written for a long-running crossover RPG called Multiverse Haven (now sadly defunct). The basic premise of the game was that characters had been pulled from multiple worlds and marked as Chosen, in order to eventually restore a dying multiverse. The main storyline takes place in Nosgoth, however there may be occasional references to characters, magic systems and some borrowed vampire terminology from other canon sources.

A low scrabbling drew Kain's attention from the thick cover of the forest below. He spared a brief, near-silent growl as Petrus climbed up beside him, the elder vampire's talons scraping hard into the granite surface. From this vantage, Kain had a tolerable view of the surrounding mountainsides and river valley, and the township that scarred the entrance to the only accessible mountain pass in the region. Crouched low, Kain also had acceptable concealment from which to spy--no longer, as the brazen Razielim stood unconcerned upon the peak of the rocky outcropping, his blood-red cape snapping in the breeze.

Petrus ignored the younger vampire. Behind him awaited forty men, a handful of the force retrieved from the far north, upon the Dumahim border. That year of long and constant combat in the belief that their lord was slain had affected a greater change upon these men than had the passage of centuries. The previously well-disciplined army had, under Petrus' nominal leadership, fragmented into dozens of small strike forces, ruled more by the necessity of ruthless efficiency than by the---in Kain's opinion--rightful chain of command. They were, frankly, undisciplined, unruly, irreverent, and generally unmanageable by any save Raziel himself. They were also the only large group of Razielim which took no exception to Kain's presence, which infuriated him to no little end.

"There," stated Petrus, pointing towards a patch of greenery little different from any other. A moment, and a faint and distant glint of steel--this one bright enough even for Kain's eyes to catch--proved him correct. Kain's eyes narrowed in consideration. Taking into account where they were hidden .... "They're waiting for the funerals," Petrus added, turning to jump easily down.

Below, smoke still rose from the remains of the little border town. It had clearly been recently sacked--but not, oddly, entirely leveled, though the party of Dumahim which Kain and Petrus had been tracking should have been capable of doing so. The reason they had not lay in the design of the city itself. Built and --during more settled times--manned by Razielim, it functioned as both a trade town and means of guarding the border. The humans there farmed the rich river valley below and provided tithes of slaves, gold, and goods--but otherwise were permitted to subsist in relative peace and safety, within the iron grip of the dark gods who ruled them. The township itself had been laid out to keep the safety of the human herd in mind. While the defenses were manned by vampires, the humans had been taught to flee any attackers, retreating up into the mountain pass and the maze of small canyons that opened onto it.

This time, of course, there had been no vampire defenders. The Dumahim had encountered no real resistance, killing as they pleased in a glut of death and blood. The humans had fled, but rather than following and troubling themselves with hunting down stragglers, the Dumahim had taken enough captives to entertain themselves some few days and retreated. Even now, believing the attackers long gone, humans were returning to rebuild. It was a simple strategy, but effective in wiping out even the cattle once kept by the Razielim.

And indeed, even at this distance, Kain could pick out the mass graves being dug with crude farm implements in between the dark masses of corn and wheat. "We should move ..." Kain started, twisting around, "..quickly." But the Razielim were already gone, ghosting with the ease of long practice through the thick vegetation. Cursing quietly, Kain followed.

***

It was hours longer before Kain returned to the larger camp of Razielim. Burdened with baggage trains--slaves, weapons, spare tack and other accouterments of warfare, as well as the recent rescues from the Sanctuary of the Clans who were yet weakened by their trials, the bulk of Raziel's forces moved perhaps fifteen miles in a day. It was a swift pace for a human army, but a crawl for vampires, who could run all night, quick as wolves.

To compensate, small raiding parties had been split off to gather supplies, as well as to waylay or at least warn of nearby enemy forces. Some of the parties had even encountered and returned with the odd lone Razielim. Kain, however, returned this time with neither spoils nor the rest of his men. He did lead a horse--a hulking and tusked beast capable of carrying the most heavily armored Dumahim elder, freshly bloodied gashes across its withers. The animal snorted and pulled at the black steel chains which served as its reins--and if Kain dragged the horse's head down easier than he should have been able, if his booted feet sank more deeply into the churned and muddied soil than they should, it was hardly noticeable in the controlled chaos of the army laying camp.

The activity was not so great as to preclude 'Masiosare's' notice. One of Raziel's lieutenants imposed himself between Kain and the large central command tent. "Lost your way, and your compatriots, fledgling?" Goran demanded.

Kain tilted his head slightly, studying the obstruction with a kind of cool, predatory interest. A few moments, and he tossed the heavy chain reins to the other vampire. "Stable this," he said, " and see that the farriers attend its wounds."

The Razielim stiffened, his talons clenching upon the chains. "I am no errand boy," he snarled, and as Kain made to pass, he closed a clawed hand upon the younger vampire's shoulder, prelude to a stiffer warning, no matter if this upstart fledge was favored of his sire or no.

Kain's gaze slid to the Razielim. The gold of his eyes seemed... thick, as entrapping as amber, somehow alien, intent with will and focus. Suddenly and strangely disconcerted, the elder dropped his hand--just as well, for the bull-like Dumahim horse champed at its bit and did its best to pull away, necessitating Goran's attention. When he turned back, Kain was already gone.

The guards before Raziel's tent, however, had been specifically cautioned in regards to 'Masiosare', and while they eyed him with a certain doubtfulness--or perhaps just squinted in the light of the rising dawn--they did not bar his passage.

Kain ducked under the flap. The tent was fairly small, spartan, the bulk of it occupied by a large table, at present laid out with maps and small figures representing the forces arrayed around them. With a great deal of fortune, the Razielim army might avoid any major combat at least until the Great Southern Lake could be reached. Once there, if forced to carve through Rahabim or Melchiahim, twould be best by far to have the freshest troops available.

Raziel and his firstborn, Anani, discussed exactly that, arguing over the likely placement of a large troop of Dumahim nearby. "While I doubt not their tenacity," Anani argued, "they'd not make another attempt on the rearguard without resupply," he said, nudging a small solid steel figure a few inches back toward the river valley the army had passed some days ago. His posture stiffened slightly as Kain entered without so much as an announcement. "You have a report?" he inquired, doing his best to keep his temper in check.

Kain scarcely spared him a glance, his attention focused on the second figure in the cramped tent, just ... looking, his gaze lingering upon the inclination of Raziel's jaw, the arch of his neck as he traced a talon over the map upon the table.

"Any news?" prompted Anani once more.

"Leave," snapped Kain, stalking inside. Anani stiffened.

Raziel lifted his head, frowning at them both.

Kain had been gone for some time in the company of Petrus' forces. In truth, Raziel had not expected his return for at least another few nights. Had something happened to the others? Raziel scrutinized the pale figure, silhouetted by the tent opening. There were no wounds, no bloodsmell to indicate injury. Kain did not seem frantic, nor fearful--not that he ever was. Kain's characteristic arrogance was not unusual, but even it had been tempered somewhat by the presence of so many elder vampires. Was this display of temper prompted simply by his jealousy of Anani's position as Raziel's firstborn? Or was something else afoot?

"Masiosare?" he said, emphasizing the pseudonym slightly in reminder to Kain of the role he played. "What has made you return?" Silently, he reached out to touch his too-young Sire's mind, focussing his Whispered thoughts tightly enough that they could not be overheard, even by Anani. _Kain ... is something amiss?_ This mad, desperate gamble they had undertaken, to rescue the Razielim and bring them through time--all it took was one misstep, one battle lost, and they would lose their precarious hold on history, he knew. The combined might of the Clans would crush them in an instant if they knew of Raziel's existence. To say nothing of the Hylden themselves, or the Elder God.

At his side, Anani growled low in his throat, taloned fingers digging into the scarred wood of the table unthinkingly. He had suffered 'Masiosare's' impertinence for his sire's sake, but to intrude thus and make demands ... it was not to be borne!

Anani had been small of build before his ascent into divinity; he was still fine boned, slighter than average for a Razielim. He no longer held his weight to one side, as he had during his first years as a fledgling, in tissue-deep memory of the disease-borne defect that had weakened his legs during Anani’s tenure as a mortal. Due to that flaw, the man had never fought in the front lines, and his greater talents had been permitted to come into flower. The uncommon skills of organization and distribution, Anani’s sharp eye for the smallest detail, his skill in magery, and his ability to direct Sarafan soldiers to whence they might harry their enemies the hardest – all these had once made existence uncertain for Kain’s young brood.

But as a human, and therefore prone to error and inexperience both, Anani had not foreseen Kain’s predawn assault – not upon the column of monster-exterminating crusaders, nor their baggage, nor their leaders, but rather upon their tacticians. Those who knew for how long the salt-pork must last, how far in advance new saddles must be ordered, which soldiers could be paid in beer or gold or spoils or not at all this moon, how to manage the spells to preserve the army's foodstuffs, how to properly read the maps, and all the other minutiae of fielding a large, highly regimented force.

The records in flames, their keepers murdered, Kain and his five eldest had escaped into the night, leaving the Sarafan brigade in a chaos that had lingered for months, until the crusaders' destruction at the claws of mindless, lesser undead.

Raziel, less than a century old and newly risen from his second evolution, took a preference to the unconscious captive Kain had sized up and borne away from the conflagration. Dumah, not yet having entered even his first state of change but unwilling to concede anything to Raziel, demanded the same human. There was no real contest between them, and the younger soon surrendered the prize, retreating to nurse a handful of new scars. Turiel and Zephon snapped at each other throughout that day; Kain took his firstborn deeper into the ruins that served as their shelter and there taught him to hook a soul from the coursing river of death and rebirth, to press it into dying flesh in the easy manner of Vorador and his kin – the doing of which Kain himself had somehow never been capable of mastering. Rahab, hidden, had watched everything, as was even then his way.

And if Raziel had at first misliked the notion of taking as a son a lame tactician, rather than one of the strong warriors he preferred, that sentiment had long ago been buried beneath the intimate bonds – heart and soul -- of Sire to fledgling… and by the fact that Anani quickly became the perfect complement to Raziel, both in his skill in battle magics and in the administration of territory that stretched into the hundreds of thousands of square miles. For the latter task, Raziel had once lacked a certain required degree of... patience.

Even recovered of his limp, Anani was small, oftimes unassuming when it suited him, for all that he could be as tempestuous as his Sire. He had been underestimated thousands of times over the ages by foes of all stripes – now mostly all dead. One might easily forget that he was older than Melchiah, that he stood very nearly at the dawn of the empire, as much as did any of Kain’s get.

As, surely, this clanless young upstart had forgotten.

Anani’s talons grooved thin curls of wood from the surface of the table, his winter-gold eyes narrowed.

Kain rounded the table lazily. “Conquest, Raziel,” he said, in answer to the spoken question. The deep gravel of his voice seemed to linger over the name. The tips of Kain’s dark claws trailed over carefully painted rivers, mountains, citadels, as he moved. He paused beside a carved mahogany case, laid open upon the table. Its exterior was somewhat scorched – it had been swept up and saved with the maps as Raziel’s citadel was overrun, more than a year before. The painted steel figures within were cushioned with red brocade – towns and clusters of heavy infantry, cavalry, bowmen, and many more, all picked out in finest detail, small gemstones indicating clan.

Raziel, perhaps distracted by his concerns, had reached out for a mind younger than his own, smaller, shallower, though similar. He found exactly, precisely that. _Naught but the obstinacy of your spawn,_ Kain sent in reply, without either amusement or rancor, but rather thoughtfully, as if he were considering Anani’s fitness for a task.

Those black nails paused upon one piece in particular, taller than the others. The Reaver, in miniature, impaled hilt-up in a flat base, the flamberge wave of its blade less than a finger in length. Every imperial army in every clan possessed one of these amongst their map markers, and they were used to designate the presence on the battlefield of one being alone. No one, evidently, had thought to remove that small idol from Raziel’s presence.

If Kain had been centuries older and fonder of toying with adversaries and allies both, if he had known the full authority -- the full godhood -- the figure represented, the gesture might have been a veiled threat. To disobey Kain was to stake one’s life upon the sand to await the sea, after all. As it was, Kain’s light exploration of the familiar symbol of the Reaver left his fingers unknowingly resting on the very heart of Anani’s rage, his unquenched sense of betrayal and his own failure to save that which meant the most.

Kain smiled, a faintest upcurl of lip.

"Conquest?" Raziel echoed, puzzled. He watched Kain's black-clawed fingers toy with his map-emblem, and felt a frisson of unease shiver over his skin. He had not thought to remove the figure from the set, so inured to its presence that he noticed it hardly at all. Now, under Kain's fingers, the tiny worked symbol of the Reaver seemed to stand as a palpable threat, its shadow cast long over the maps under the flickering lamps.

A low growl of warning rumbled from Anani's chest. "This is hardly the time or place to importune Lord Raziel with word-games," he snapped. He stepped sideways, around the map table, intent upon teaching the fledgling a lesson in manners--

\--only to be forestalled by a taloned hand wrapped hard around his arm, as Raziel held him fast with immoveable strength.

"We have no time for such petty bickering, Anani." Raziel walked a fine line with this, he knew. He could not coddle 'Masiosare' too obviously; even with the reverence the Razielim had shown to their returned lord, doing so created jealousies and strife among the established hierarchy of elders at a time when they could least afford it.

On the flip side of the coin, however, was the fact that Raziel could not help but defer to his sire. Regardless of his relative youth and inexperience, Kain was Kain. Raziel's fealty had been given the moment those first drops of Kain's blood had touched his lips, and the obedience ingrained in him in all the long centuries since was not so easily ignored, even in circumstances such as these.

 _Kain._ There was a certain amount of exasperation in the Whisper, underlaid with trickles of memory. Kain had been essential on this mad quest ... but it seemed that wherever his too-young Sire went, trouble inevitably followed. _What is it that it could not wait?_ He did not want to dismiss Anani--his eldest would not take it well. But Raziel was not sure he could trust Anani's rising temper where Kain was concerned, either.

 _Anani._ This time the Whisper was overlaid with a note of command, and Raziel let a shred of his own temper show. _Leave us for a moment, so that I might deal with this._ The implication being that Raziel would punish 'Masiosare' for his impudence. Hopefully it would cool Anani's temper and allow him to accept his dismissal with good grace, but regardless, his firstborn knew his duty. Anani would obey his lord's commands.

“Fruitful conquest, to be more precise. Our quarry indeed sought resupply in the valleys,” Kain said in response to the verbal query, appearing to ignore the unspoken one – though he perhaps paused a moment, as if savoring that contact, tasting the intricacies and flow of the mental channel as thoroughly as his eyes drank in Raziel… and Raziel’s vexed expression.

Anani drew his arm free of Raziel’s grasp and clasped a taloned fist over his heart. “My Lord,” he said, and obeyed, though from the grit of his teeth it was evident he’d be airing his concerns to Raziel soon enough, in private. He respected his Sire far, far too much to disagree with him in public, most especially in Masiosare’s company. And he knew the consequences of opposing his Sire’s will, as well. Raziel was no Lord to slay a man for disagreement, of course, not as some of his brothers were; but even so, there was a time and a place for argument.

Kain did not bother to watch his departure. And while he did tilt his head slightly, Kain surely did not track Anani’s quiet footfalls as the Razielim ducked under the flap and moved to stand outside, since to a fledgling’s heading, those soft sounds were not distinguishable from the pounding, clanging noise of an army laying camp.

Kain's fingertips left the small idol, with one last caress. “This most recent distraction has been scattered to the wind…” Kain said, selecting from the box a handful of map markers, before moving to stand beside Raziel. Kain must have learnt the meaning of that particular phrase from some of the other Razielim – as elder vampires collapsed into ash when slain, the words implied far more than simply 'to disperse.' If Kain had intended any other meaning by ‘conquest’, it was not now evident.

Kain reached across the map. With the tip of a talon, he nudged the figure of a swordsman bearing an amethyst shield back up the river valley, until it touched upon the outline of Finlarig, the border town there. Under the edge of Kain’s dark nail the small Dumahim marker tilted forward and fell, face down upon the map. “…though you may wish for equally facile corrivalry, before this epic concludes. My flight here proved… illuminating.” Neatly, precisely, one by one, Kain played his handful of pawns upon the board, arraying them around the small cluster of ruby-shielded figures – and one taller marker, simply a crimson flag painted with a pair of white enamel symbols -- encamped in a sheltered vale for the day.

Four more battalions of Dumahim scoured the hills, a day’s march behind Raziel’s force, upon the same trail as their brethren had unsuccessfully followed. Another, closer than the others, had been lured aside, perhaps following a false trail -- perhaps chasing down their mysteriously escaped mounts -- but they too would be quick to return to the traces left by the passage of so many Razielim. There were several more figures, cast in silver and polished until they seemed mirrored, moving through the mountains some few dozens of miles away -- tiny groups of Zephonim, but all the more dangerous and difficult to spot for their apparent paucity of numbers. Most worrying, a large marker, capped by an emerald of virulent green, was placed in the Ywain region, a rich gold-mining district which Raziel’s force would pass through in three days’ time, upon their current course. It was not difficult to imagine what Turel’s pampered generals would be doing there, but they too would relish a chance to confront even a large body of Razielim. Coupled with those few parties of foes whose whereabouts Raziel already knew, these newest additions to the map made the prospect of passage to the Ancients' chronoplast, provided it still existed, a daunting one.

Raziel lifted his eyebrows at the information Kain had brought him. "You have ventured far afield indeed," he remarked, turning to watch the placement of these new forces with a frown. He knew better than to ask whether Kain was sure of their numbers and location, though he wondered how accurately his too-young Sire had identified the Clans involved. "This is most troublesome--especially if they have some inkling of the spoor they follow." The Dumahim and Turelim would never give up the chance to capture such a sizeable group of Razielim, if they indeed knew the nature of their quarry. If they did not, however ....

"I wonder ... perhaps we can set these wolves upon each other?" Raziel mused out loud, pacing to the other side of the table in order to view the tableau from a different angle. "The Turelim would not not like Dumah's spawn encroaching upon such a rich prize, if they truly have taken Ywain ...." The trick of the matter being that he somehow needed to ensure that his Razielim were not also caught in the same trap, of course.

"This information is most timely," he said slowly, still contemplating the dilemma posed by the forces arrayed against them. "But was it truly necessary to aggravate Anani thus in the delivering of it?"

Kain watched Raziel walk away, around the table. The motion exposed the whole of the other vampire’s back, the delicate sweeping architecture of bone, tendon, muscle, and thin, soft skin that looked – and felt – like velveteen. Folded, the wings’ cream dapples were visible only as faintly deeper shadows. The warm lamplight gave Raziel's high-white skin a living glow, highlighting muscles beneath the armored surface, casting the curve of his back as a study in darkness and gold. Kain did not bother glancing at the table, his gaze instead following every of Raziel’s small movements. Kain raised an eyebrow archly. “A minor indulgence, Raziel.”

In the future, Kain would have very little to do with the get of any of his own sons. Which was the way the bothers preferred – a fledgling's survival in the face of Kain’s undivided attention was by no means assured, even on the rare occasion that he was not displeased with them. Raziel had been more successful than most in deflecting Kain’s interest in any of his clan -- which meant that there were no Razielim who likely remembered precisely the sound of Kain’s voice. That worked to their advantage now. Still, were Kain older and significantly more judicious, he might make a specific effort to keep Raziel’s eldest too distracted to potentially draw certain conclusions. As it was, Kain’s youthful indiscretions produced much the same effect.

Kain’s tone held the shadow of a familiar note – prelectory, probing, testing. “Tell me, then. How will you coordinate such a chicanery, when the very mountainsides are listening?” Zephonim were adept at picking up long-range communication, unless very finely directed between very powerful senders. Doubtless that was the reason Petrus, who relied heavily on the use of scouts, had not simply beamed back the information Kain had just provided.

Raziel lifted his eyebrows at that mention of Kain's indulgence, giving his Sire a sidelong look. But he made no demur; in truth, Anani's ire was the least of his current worries, as Kain's information so amply proved. Frowning thoughtfully, he again shifted sideways around the table, bending slightly downward to lightly trace the curved lines and markings that delineated the terrain around the camp, searching for an advantage.

"I have no easy answer to that," Raziel confessed. "Nor a workable stratagem--yet." For a moment, he felt a pang of aching regret that it was the younger incarnation of his Sire that stood at his side and not the elder Kain. Raziel was a fair strategist and a master tactician, able to snatch victory from defeat in an instant from the hue and cry of the battlefield, but he was no match against an elder Kain's cunning. That labyrinthine mind had seen the secrets of Nosgoth, and behind those golden eyes were hatched opaque stratagems that oft spanned centuries, tightening about Kain's desired objective like a razored noose, leaving no escape. This impetuous younger Kain was no fool, and Raziel did not make the mistake of assuming otherwise. But he did not have the hard-won knowledge of his elder self. Not yet.

"Even if I took on the guise of a Dumahim or Turelim general and attempted to lead them astray, we would still be hard-pressed to conceal our movements from their scouts. There are simply too many of us now. But even speed will not serve us--not with Turelim ahead whilst the Dumahim harry us from the rear." Damnation. They were not caught in the trap--not quite--but slipping it would not be easy. In addition, Raziel could not take to the field openly. He was confident in his warriors' prowess, but he dared not let the other Clans bloody his Razielim too grievously--not when the armies of the Hylden still awaited them in the past.

Kain's eyes narrowed fractionally. From the side, Raziel’s wings could very well be mistaken for a pair of swords upon his back, the narrow bundles of bone and sinew and membrane like fine white leather over blade-worthy steel. In fact, those thin and elegant bones were not so strong as steel; they were moreso, as well as more flexible and much lighter. Silicon and carbon took the place of calcium in a heavy-metal matrix, a composition intensely familiar to one who had examined the physical makeup of the Reaver in detail. Draped in tough but elastic leathery membrane, twined with tendon and an elder vampire’s fibrous black muscle, those angular alien bones were capable of beating hard against the thickness of the air and hefting Raziel’s weight many times over into the skies.

Now they rustled a little, folding tighter as Raziel, frowning in thought, laid his talons upon the map, the tips of his claws splayed out over the myriad of streams and townships and high mountain passes arrayed around them as he searched out some advantage in the terrain. Kain exhaled a little, a short breath of something akin to amusement. Teach a man a parlor trick… Raziel had once been warned of the limitations to the spell of illusion; walking into the midst of an army of attentive onlookers and deliberately drawing the attention necessary to deliver false commands would strain them all, even had Raziel more than a mere few months of practice. Fleshcrafting was a far surer means of infiltration. “Your self-estimation is assuredly… convinced, my Raziel, albeit unconvincing,” Kain rumbled, stalking the few steps forward.

Before Raziel could draw a breath to respond, Kain reached out and, with just the faintest hesitation before touching skin, stroked down Raziel’s jawline, the tender underside of his chin, the constant and pulseless flow that ran just beneath armored skin, up the column of his throat. The caress was oddly affected, for Kain kept his palm turned down, stroking with the backs of his knuckles, his talons undercurved. Elders touched precious or delicate things so, for their palms could be every bit as cutting as knives, and were less sensitive than the back of the hand. Fledglings who spent too much time amongst their elders sometimes picked up the habit. The touch of Kain’s hand was cool and dry, reverential, as light as if he stroked waterspun silk, not skin.

It was also a reasonably effective distraction, for in the next instant a heavy boot kicked Raziel’s hooves wide and Kain’s free hand struck the center of his back, hard, between the closely-folded wings, just above the plated joint where they met his back, shoving him forward and down. The violence was abrupt, decisive, finely timed. Raziel hit the heavy wooden table chest-first with a hard thump, scattering army markers. Kain’s hand clasped on Raziel’s hip, long black nails scoring leather and skin, pinning him against the map-covered surface, at back and at waist. “ _Think,_ ” Kain hissed, even as Raziel tensed to writhe free snake-quick and round on him in fanged and snarling fury. “Think, Raziel. Your antagonists’ fundamental assumptions, their fatal conjectures – what are they?” The cluster of figures at the center of the map, by some twist of chance, were unmoved before Raziel’s hot golden gaze, still standing, still marking the positions of the Razielim and their foes.

Raziel had been surprised by the delicate, reverent touch to his neck. He had began to straighten, to glance over his shoulder, curious how a younger Kain might have learned such a mannerism--from Anani or the other elder Razielim, perhaps ...?

\--only to fall victim to Kain's sudden capricious surge of violence.

Rearing back in instinctive fury, Raziel surged against the sharp-taloned hands that held him, furious at the insult--only to find his strength matched and outmatched, Kain as immoveable as a mountain. A cold apprehension suddenly tinged his anger--when had Kain gained such strength? Not during his time with the Hylden; Raziel knew that much. Could this be an imposter? Another Zephonim infiltrator, one who had dared take on the guise of 'Masiosare'? Raziel stilled, turning his head against the table to regard his captor with a narrowed golden gaze, fangs still bared in a defiant snarl. The silver hair, long enough now to gather into a queue, was the same--the face, the body, and even the arrogant expression were utterly that of his Sire. He had touched Kain's mind, could even now taste that aura of power, potent, full of nascent promise, rippling against his skin. Zephon himself could not manufacture that, much less any of his spawn.

No, this was Kain.

For some reason, that did not quell his unease. Not with a taloned hand upon his back, dangerously near his wings.

"The Dumahim believe ... they are hunting refugees, scattered remnants that perhaps have banded together for protection. They do not--cannot know of my presence, or yours, or Tarrant's. Nor of our ultimate goal ..." Raziel said slowly, watching his Sire, his talons clawed deep into the table, every muscle tensed. "The Zephonim likewise ... for now." The Turelim would likely be utterly ignorant of their presence--their scouts would have no reason to venture this far, and their elders were far more focused upon exploiting what they had already taken.

The terrain worked against them; the mountains that had been their shield now became part of their cage, with the Clans their jailors. Attacking any of their enemies in force would only draw more unwanted attention, not less. Raziel did not dare attempt to impersonate any of his brethren or their progeny, unless .... He stopped short, suddenly arrested by a thought.

Ofttimes, a lone assassin could do what entire armies could not. Especially one that could not be recognized .... not by any creature in *this* time.

For vampirekind, strength was far more than a matter of physical, muscular effort. The ability to warp the fabric of gravity in order to lighten and thus slow a falling body – or to facilitate flight – could also be turned upon itself, rendering objects far heavier than their mass. Used correctly, such manipulation provided the leverage to move otherwise impossible weights... or to hold them down. Perhaps Kain had obtained practice and training in that talent, thus explaining the newfound granite immobility.

Or perhaps it was that long-nailed palm, so close to the joint of Raziel’s wings that the silken skin stretched over bony spars brushed Kain’s wrist. Any attempt to resist Kain’s will would surely be tempered by that cool, unyielding contact.

Kain’s pupils dilated a fraction with Raziel’s analysis – approval, or something else? The Dumahim certainly did not comprehend the nature of the quarry they pursued, for not even they would pit many small, disordered forces against a very large, well-organized one. Anani's means of keeping the army moving as swiftly as possible -- by utilizing dozens of outriding bands to gather supplies, rather than relying upon extensive, slow baggage trains -- resulted in a serpent's nest of Razielim trails and signs of passage across the mountains, so the Dumahim had a great deal of cause to believe they pursued scattered refugees.

Kain watched as the germ of an idea crossed Raziel’s face, easing the winged vampire’s snarl into something more thoughtful. "We may presume the Zephonim know enough to pique their interest," Kain corrected dryly. A small shift, and he was pinning Raziel’s hips with his own, freeing one hand… to slide up to the base of Raziel’s left wing. Again that light, reverential touch, a brushing caress with talons undercurved, focusing not on the shieldlike plates of bone and the achingly sensitive patch of flesh beneath, but rather the complex network of tendons that corded the jointed bones of the main wingspar. Those wings were now unconsciously folded so tightly they trembled, just faintly, the barest shiver to be felt under the skin. "Your spawn are abruptly behaving as if they had a leader, a purpose," Kain purred. Zephon had only to note the sudden absence of Razielim elsewhere in the region, or to catch of fragment of a no-longer despondant Whisper, to know that much, and perhaps to conjecture a great deal more. “But continue,” Kain prompted.

Raziel could not suppress the involuntary shiver as taloned fingers brushed over the folded framework of his wings, but he refused to let it show on his face, or even to demand that Kain release him. "An assassin," he said instead, pondering upon his idea even as he spoke. "One unrecognizeable by any creature save you or I--a blue-skinned, demonic creature that can disappear and reappear at will to wreak havoc among the Dumahim leadership, and then lay a trail to Ywain ...." He tilted his head, regarding Kain with a sober and unsmiling expression. It could work, and work well. The prospect of abandoning this body for the lifeless, wingless shell of his wraithform ... was not pleasant, but Raziel would count it a small price indeed to preserve his Clan.

"I cannot command my Razielim to act as though they have no hope, no direction ... the Zephonim spies would see through such an act regardless. But a few well-placed kills would do much to pit the Dumahim and Turelim's natural suspicions against each other, and perhaps catch a few Zephonim unawares at the same time ...." Raziel's gaze was dark and pitiless.

Kain laughed, a low and stygian grating. “So, you proffer your hands in the service of assassination, Raziel?" Kain passed the pad of his thumb over a bony jut, a spur that anchored and stabilized the finer muscles of the finger-like supportive spars. He studied Raziel’s expression a moment – that anger, the furious determination, the heat that sintered the gold of his eyes molten. With careful delicacy, Kain cupped the palm of his soft, still-human hand around the joint; the weight of bone and muscle and sinew nestled in his palm.

Kain leaned down, bringing his lips to brush against the curve of Raziel’s ear. The movement exposed his face and neck, should Raziel release the table and claw backwards. “Recall, my Raziel, that observers are an opportunity, as equally as they are a liability.” Kain’s breath was an electric stirring over Raziel’s skin. His grip tightened slightly. The muscles cording Raziel’s wings were so strong, the flight surface could not be forceably spread – at least, not without dislocating the bones entirely. Kain’s fingertips found three specific points, junctures where nerves passed close to the surface upon the limb of Raziel’s left wing, and pressed.

As sharply as if Raziel’s elbow had been struck, back before the bones in his arms had thickened to shield the ulnar nerve there from accidental contact, the limb prickled, went half-numb – and Kain began to ease the wing open with proprietary dominion.

Raziel's patience, already strained by the mockery of his too-young Sire, began to fray to its last strand. "What oppor--" He broke off, stiffening at the sharp spark of pain that allowed the other vampire manhandle his wing, even as Kain's lips ghosted over his skin. A low reverberating growl began, rumbling from deep within his chest as his talons curved inward, gouging through map and table alike. He had allowed Kain to touch his wings before, briefly, or in the heat of passion ... but he was still an elder, and he would not have them manhandled so! Not by the creature responsible for his maiming!

 _Enough! Release me, Kain!_ A snarl underlaid Raziel's mental voice just as much as it would have the physical, twined about with dark power that would have been ample warning to any other vampire. Still growling, every muscle taut with mute resistance and the effort it took not to simply turn and savage the younger vampire, he tried to yank his wing free of those hands.

"You've grown accustomed to flying free," Kain grated, with a certain wry amusement, against the perfect shell of Raziel's ear. And then, improbably, he obeyed Raziel's command -- for a split second. Raziel's left wing was released to flail, still uncoordinated, against the table; the bone spars struck with a thwack like leather impacting skin, scattering map markers and overturning a bottle of ink. Black droplets spattered widely, drawing a spreading stain upon the cream-white leather of Raziel's wingtip. The broad flight surface raised a wind that blasted the layered maps from the table, that extinguished oil lamps and made the walls of the tent strain briefly against their lacings.

"Neglecting Turel for the moment..." Kain reached up and, simply ignoring both chaos and palpable fury, slipped Raziel's clan drape off the hidden hooks that bound it beneath the heavy, jointed pauldron. "...what are your own assumptions on this battlefield..." as Kain twisted the fabric between his two fists, Raziel was free, unpinned. The winged vampire's muscular surge brought his torso up off the solid wood surface, shoved his hips back into Kain's. "...your own _blindnesses_ ," Kain hissed. Raziel reared up, his head lifting -- just enough for Kain to wrap the crimson length over his eyes.

Kain made preternaturally quick work of the knot behind Raziel's head, and stygian blackness descended -- so alien to an elder vampire, to whose eyes a half-obscured handful of stars cast illumination enough to see for miles. But the cloaks of clansmen were designed to shield their bearers from damaging light. The tension in the hooding length of fabric, the knot still firmly in Kain's grasp, kept Raziel's neck forced back at a torturous angle. Raziel's talons ripped free from the scarred tabletop, reaching for the blindfold and -- "Leave it," Kain snarled, pure command.

Raziel stilled instinctively, a shudder rippling through tensed muscles as the habit of obedience outweighed his fury--for the moment.

"Enough of your games," he snapped. Both Kain's cryptic pronouncements and canny machinations were something Raziel knew well--but that did not mean he had to like them! He shoved back blindly against his sire, wings flexing as he strove vainly to free himself. "What are you trying to prove? If I have overlooked something, then say so and be done with it!" Raziel did not care for this new oracular tendency of Kain's--it reminded him far too much of his Sire's elder self. He pushed backwards again, doing his best to ignore the feel of Kain's muscled frame behind him, the dark and familiar scent saturating his senses.

Kain snorted softly. He laid his palm upon the outstretched length of Raziel’s left wing as it tried vainly to fold. “You have overlooked nothing,” he said absently, mood and tone mercurial. His fingertips found long, pale seams, only half-visible, upon the stretchy membrane. Not three weeks previous, Raziel had fought his way through a darkmagic trap beneath the Sanctuary of the Clans. There, a phantom copy of Kain had rent the soft leather of Raziel’s wings. The wounds had healed, leaving behind broad scars of ridged tissue, though had the injuries been struck to Raziel’s body, the scars would have vanished in a day or less with good feeding.

Whether he realized it or no, Raziel – or rather, his present, physical form – was only a few years risen from his last, fatal evolution. The dark gifts granted by one’s nature were always delicate at first, subject to injury and slow to heal. That would change given time – or it would, in the case of any other vampire. Raziel had grown vastly in experience and power, perhaps enough to force his body through another evolution long before natural. The consequences of this, Kain could not say.

“The conclusions you draw from the facts before you, however, are staggeringly archetypic. Do you believe that Zephon knows the ways of your clan so poorly?” Kain applied pressure to either side of the worst of the scars, testing the flex of the delicate tissue. Aside from a faintly reluctant stiffness, the membrane was whole, and entirely serviceable. “Particularly now,” Kain added, following one puckered scar up to the place where membrane joined the arched spar, at the leading edge of Raziel’s left wing, near the wrist-like joint. The backs of Kain’s knuckles stroked the velveteen skin, tracing delicately over bone and tendon. That first, terrible violation had been struck here, millennia ago – or a year ago.

No trace of it remained.

Arched backwards by Kain's hand upon the drape over his eyes, Raziel could not prevent the tiny instinctive shivers of his skin under that knowing, exploratory touch. Kain's maiming had only been the first indignity foisted upon those wings, and if nothing else, his battles in Haven had taught them how easy they were to target--and how vulnerable they continued to be.

Still straining away in mute resistance, Raziel suppressed his half-formed fears and his frustration alike, trying to concentrate on Kain's words. "What do you mean? We have caught one spy already--Zephon's interest is obvious. But as long as we can intercept his creatures, Zephon can only know that the Razielim now move with a purpose--but not our intentions, nor where our ultimate goal lies." Kain's hand moved upward, stroking the still-tender membrane of one unfurled wing, and Raziel shuddered at the mingled sensations that touch wrought, fear and pleasure intertwined. He had not felt this vulnerable since ... his mind shied away from the memories.

"What is this sudden fascination with my wings, Kain?" he said with forced calm. "And what do you know regarding Zephon's intentions that I do not?" Not to mention--just how had a fledgling Kain learned of such things?

Kain smoothed his palm over the soft skin of Raziel's entrapped wing, from the joint down to the tip. The aubergine ink spattered over the wing's surface stained his hand, as dark as an elder's blood. There was a certain... fascination in the gesture, Kain watching the tiny twitchings of muscle, the way the membrane stretched and gave and eased back into place under his hand. "Have I not told you?" Kain asked, tilting his head, as if thinking back.

The link between them sparked open, an achingly familliar contact. The images that flashed through, however... were fogged, stolen from an unwilling mind and then further weathered by time. Blood, heat, a close and chitin-lined chamber, angular and alien; screaming and gaping fangs, the sizzle of flesh and the scent of ashes. Faces, figures flashed: Lucius, Raziel's fourty-second, held immobile; a three-clawed hand, severed and collapsing into dust; a tall, slender elder upon a throne, lifting a crystal cup of deep purple fluid to the faint light. The scent of it was rich with the undeniable power of Razielim.

Even in his awkward pose, held captive underneath Kain's hands, Raziel stiffened, outrage visible in every line of his body. The images that flickered past were disjointed, alien in their perceptions ... but not devoid of meaning.

"Lucius. Zephon dared ..." He flexed taloned fingers, as if wishing to tear them through his brother's flesh. "He dares to treat my Razielim as nothing more than cattle? To bind and bleed them to satisfy his own greedy appetites? That miserable bootlicking worm! I should kill him thrice over for this!" To fall in battle was one thing, but this--to have his progeny treated as nothing more than human blood-slaves, as succulent cattle on which Zephon might sup, and therefore gain some measure of Raziel's power ... it was more than an insult. It was an abomination.

Raziel snarled, struggling once more to be free of Kain's hands, incandescently furious. "I will nail that cowardly spider's hide to the wall for this trespass--he and all his spawn! Release me!" There was no thought of strategy, not now--nor even any care for any outside listening ears. Only the fact that the tent had been warded prior to Kain's entrance, in order that he and Anani might confer in peace, kept his angry outburst from rousing the entire camp.

Kain was forced to release the slow, stroking pressure on Raziel’s wing as the other vampire threw himself into violent resistance, twisting, writhing. Piercing the table entirely through with claws outstretched, Raziel used the leverage to buck to the side. The ends of the fabric whipped between Kain’s fingers; the freed wing snapped up, buffeting Kain a stunning blow. And then Raziel was out from under his grasp.

Hn. In retrospect, perhaps there was a reason Kain had not informed Raziel previously, after all.

Raziel tore himself upright and raced, blind. His hand went to the obscuring length of fabric. There was an instant’s half-sensed impression of something big – too close, too fast – and then he was struck from the side like being caught in a mountainslide. The pair of bodies tumbled over, hit the ground, slid, Raziel’s hand mere steps from the thin barrier of the tent. Again Raziel was pinned, this time with Kain straddling, his weight over Raziel’s back and the close-folded wings. “ _They_ are long dead,” Kain hissed, nails catching briefly in the buckled leather of Raziel’s pauldron, then slitting through, “as shall be the rest of your clan, if you lead them recklessly.”

Raziel growled, trying to heave himself upward, to throw Kain off--but those talons on his shoulders tightened in mute warning, and he subsided. The pauldron fell askew as the straps that held it in place were slit, then was discarded with a heavy thump upon the ground.

He was still angry--but being pinned thus had afforded him something to think about besides Zephon's insult to his Clan. He tried once more to reach up and divest himself of his blindfold, only to receive a stinging smack to his hands and a warning growl for his pains.

"What would you require of me, then?" he snapped, exasperated, turning his face to look blindly over his shoulder. "Why taunt me with Zephon's trespasses against my Clan--and how is it you have come to learn all this, Kain?" Even had he left Petrus' forces immediately upon leaving the camp, 'Masiosare' would hardly have had time to infiltrate himself into Xephon's fortress, even assuming he had been told where it was.

“As to the last – you delivered unto me and Tarrant a Zephonim spy. We extracted a number of such incidents from her memories,” Kain answered easily. His tone was lingering in a certain calculated, calculating way; delicative with the recollection of the process of… extraction. There had been no particular attempt at collusion between Kain and Tarrant to conceal the information from Raziel, largely because they both felt that Zephon’s cannibalism was neither extraordinary nor unexpected. Having known the power of Raziel’s vitae, either might have done the same themselves, in Zephon’s circumstances. Zephon's diablerie simply had been too obvious to mention, at the time.

Clearly, Raziel hadn't expected it. “As for the rest,” Kain mused, lightly stroking a lock of hair back from Raziel’s blinded face, “mayhaps I should afford you time to reflect upon the factualities, the rationales in play.” Kain laid a finger across the bow of Raziel’s lips. “How, though, shall I keep this querulous tongue occupied, so that you might have space to think?” Kain paused, as if considering... or perhaps judging the words to rouse Raziel's ire. His left hand tightened a little on Raziel’s shoulder, imprinting a hand-shaped mark in blood-black ink. Kain wrapped his fingers in the knot of the blindfold once more, controlling, even as his weight left Raziel’s back. “Kneel,” Kain commanded.

Raziel snarled in answer to the arrogant command. This was Kain, his sire--or at least he would be, in the centuries to come. But Raziel had travelled too far and suffered too much to so easily humble himself at Kain's feet once more--not when he had battled Kain as an equal, and even bested him. Once, at least.

"You must have found your sport with that Zephonim greatly to your liking," he said sourly, pushing himself up from the ground. "Do not let it go to your head, Kain. I am not some pathetic fledge that you can torment and bully with impunity!" Digging his feet into the ground, he surged upwards, using the full measure of his strength in an attempt to rip himself from Kain's hold. In the same movement, he turned, slicing blindly across with a taloned hand in an attempt to turn the tables on his importunate sire.

Raziel’s escape from Kain’s grasp was not difficult – in order to avoid ripping the blindfold, Kain had to let it go. The sweep of Raziel’s talons caught flesh across Kain’s belly – and sheared it open. Glistening liquid coated his talons, thick and clinging as syrup. But something wasn’t right about the resistance, the way his talons skidded, as if Kain wore armor. While the bloodscent seemed no different from the weeks before, something… “ _Heedless child,_ ” Kain hissed. He did not stagger, nor flinch -- made no attempt to avoid the injury. Rather, he simply seized Raziel by the throat.

As a wraith, Raziel had once fought Kain to a standstill. But a body of flesh and blood had its own weaknesses, and even living within that body for a few years had not acquainted Raziel with all of them. “Your jealousy is misplaced," Kain snarled, his arm wrapping around Raziel’s back, hard, trapping Raziel’s wings and crushing the struggling form against his own. Claws scrabbled against Kain’s skin – armor? -- the angle now too close to apply real force. “In the end she proved disappointing, my Raziel."

Raziel managed a grazing kick that opened jagged gouges across Kain’s thigh, and Kain dragged him off the ground, jerked his head to one side, and sank fangs into the exposed throat.

A keening noise of frustration, anger, and desire, all combined, escaped from Raziel's throat as Kain bit deep. Pinned so closely and with no leverage, he could do little to free himself, struggle as he might. The bright flare of pain as Kain's fangs pierced his flesh was nothing, there and gone--but the hot suckling draw of his sire's mouth upon his throat made him shudder in pleasure. Against his will, he submitted to Kain's authority by slow degrees, his strength inexorably drained one swallow at a time until he was clinging to the other vampire's hard frame, taloned hands curved possessively around the same flesh he had wounded only moments before.

With the drape over his eyes, it was easy to forget that he was dealing with a fledgling Kain. Easy to submerge himself in the scent of his sire--the snap of lightning, the scent of old stone and dark, rich blood that saturated the air; to allow himself to be subsumed under the rise of Kain's power, spreading outward like a dark tide until Raziel could feel nothing else.

Blood called to blood, was answered in a pulsing draw that swept upwards, from the tip of Raziel's toes, talons, wings, in sensitizing waves. The bloodmagic of feeding, applied to lesser creatures, was inevitably fatal, summoning the vitae up in pulses from every extremity, every capillary. Applied to another vampire, it was the most dangerous of pleasures. Its tidal rhythm unbalanced, blood abandoned the flesh it nurtured, leaving an ultra-sensitized ache in its wake. Torpor, that great void of unending, sweetest sleep, beckoned; it seemed as if only the charge-shot field of Kain's latent power separated him from it, kept Raziel from the fall. That, and the grip around him, the strong shoulders under his taloned hands.

A vampire could kill like this -- could die like this.

As Raziel's body relaxed, Kain gradually loosed his grip around Raziel's throat, stroked instead over his head, smoothing silken hair back where it had come loose from its binding. Each swallow was slow, measured... savored. Raziel was so much more, now, than he once was -- his vitality palpable as unfiltered sunlight, as caliginous as the planes of oblivion.

Under the heady sensation of Kain's lips on his throat, Raziel had no defense. Any thoughts of struggle had fallen away, and in the dizzying haze produced by blood loss, he could not help but accept Kain's will ... not meekly, perhaps, but with a sense of rightness; that he had returned to where he belonged. And if Kain had chosen to drain Raziel to the dregs, to condemn him to a torporous sleep on the edge of death ... then that, in this moment, seemed only his right.

"K-Kain ..." The name was the merest breath of sound. Raziel curled inward, fitting himself to Kain's form like he was once more a fledgling seeking shelter or forgiveness, his chin lifting the barest fraction in an attempt to bare his throat further. And hidden behind the blindfold, golden eyes began to bleed into purest white as Kain continued to drink, pushing him ever nearer to the borders of the Underworld.

The small motions of submission evoked a rumbling growl, grating and feral, deep in Kain’s chest. A few last swallows, as if Kain could not help himself, and at last the drawing force eased, faded. It was moments more before the long fangs were withdrawn from Raziel’s flesh. The wounds left behind were like stains, as black as the ink upon Kain and Raziel both. The twin punctures began to seal over – slowly, under broad strokes of Kain’s tongue. The vibrations of his growl shivered over Raziel’s skin.

“My Raziel,” Kain purred, pressing an open-mouthed kiss against now nearly-whole flesh. He lifted his head slightly, nuzzled against the curve of Raziel’s ear. “Prideful child,” warm, blood-scented breath carried the whisper, rumbling with approval.

Kain took a step back, never easing his grasp on Raziel’s languorous frame. A small scuff of wood on packed soil, and Kain eased himself down, to sit upon a backless campstool, Raziel between his thighs. He reached up, disentangled Raziel’s clinging grasp from his shoulders, examined the winged vampire’s talons. Beneath the glistening black vitae that coated the cutting edges, the high-white skin was faintly grayed. Kain drew his fingers across those talons, then over the similar smear across his belly, the wound there long since vanished. He pressed the backs of those fingers, long claws undercurved, to Raziel’s lips. “Lave,” he directed.

Tilting his head blindly, Raziel's nostrils flared at the unmistakable scent of his sire's blood. Lips parting, he let his tongue flicker out to taste, hesitantly at first, then with growing eagerness, heedless of the insult to his dignity. Both desire and the beginnings of the Hunger coiled deep in his belly made him make little sounds of need deep in his throat, and right now he did not care who saw--even if Anani had entered at that moment, to see his Sire kneeling abjectly before 'Masiosare', it still would not have dragged his attention away from Kain's command.

Raziel reverently stroked his tongue across the smooth surface of Kain's talons, the dark potent spark of his sire's blood over his palate prompting minute shudders of delight as he licked the drying vitae away. Perhaps it was his blindness, or his newfound hunger, but his Sire's blood seemed ... thicker, somehow, more potent, and infinitely addictive. And when the smooth surfaces were licked clean, Raziel laid lips upon those knuckles, caressing Kain's taloned fingers with a series of suckling kisses, each one a mute devotional plea.

Kain’s knees held tight against Raziel’s sides, entrapping, supporting him when he might have swayed. Kain’s free hand cupped his head as Raziel licked, kissed. Long talons curved over silken hair and soft skin, catching roughly over the drape, sigil of pride, turned now to Kain’s service. His grip closed on the back of Raziel’s neck for a moment, traced down to one bare shoulder. Upon his raising, Raziel had borne darker flecks upon his skin; freckles, just a few. During those first years, Kain had spent entire anxious days examining his progeny inch by inch, quelling any protest with a heavy hand as he tried to determine if the marks were a flaw – for he’d borne none at his own rebirth. They were not -- those small remnant traces of humanity had vanished upon Raziel's first evolution. Now, as so often before, Kain traced the remembered constellations, talons scraping over Raziel’s shoulder, upper arm.

The past months had worn upon Raziel -- more subtly than had his many millennia of descent, the legacy of which even now rimmed his eyes in hellfire-white, but no less deeply. The leather of his breeches was scuffed, watermarked, had been repaired along the hip. His talons, beneath the blood and ink – the former blacker than the latter – were nicked in places where he had caught descending weapons or dug handholds in granite, the edges no longer burnished smooth and keen with pumice. An eye less sharp might miss any of those signs… but the relief with which Raziel yielded was by far the more telling. The fate of Raziel’s kin and kindred hung in the balance, moreso now than ever in a long, long history. That knowledge was a heavy burden to bear, as weighty as hope borne upon the edge of a blade.

And now, of course, it was a sacrifice. All that fear, that disquiet, the worry that had dogged Raziel’s every move through his homeland, now offered up, an oblation upon the pyre – for the space of a mortal’s heartbeat, a few breaths, an hour. Kain hooked his talon-tips beneath Raziel’s chin, tilted his blinded visage up. So beautiful like this, his wing-weary hunter, his beautiful killer home from the fray, a claret-taloned grace upon his fist. Kain bent forward, his rougher lips brushing Raziel’s. “All warfare,” he murmured, or perhaps the words were only breathed into Raziel’s shock-open mind, “is deception.” Leather shushed upon leather – the whisper of a thong being drawn loose.

Dizzied and distracted by the combination of Hunger and Kain's own puissance, Raziel did not seize upon the clue his Sire had offered, his attention entirely subsumed in the present. Without sight, it truly was ... easier to submit, to believe in the potence of Kain's aura and the darkness of the voice that commanded him. The cool chitin of the talons that lifted his chin only reinforced that, encouraging his submission even further.

He didn't want to question this. After the vagaries of Haven, of comrades found and lost, of the Timestreamer and his tricks ... He needed this. Needed Kain, his omniscient and immortal Sire, his God; the one constant in his universe.

"Ka..." the name dissolved into an exhaled breath as lips pressed down on his own. Raziel responded eagerly, opening his mouth, lifting himself into the kiss as much as Kain's grip would allow. His hands gripped the thighs that caged him, taloned fingers flexing tight, heedless of his too-young Sire's assumed fragility.

If there was any discomfort in that grip, the press of talons that could ratchet through steel or stone, Kain showed it not. He smoothed one hand, open-palmed, down Raziel’s silken hair once more, catching the simple band of leather that tied it back and tugging it loose. Raziel might have once meant to shear his mane short, but had never found the time or inclination, for it was as long now as it had ever been. Kain combed his fingers through the black strands, even as he tasted the proffered mouth, at first delicately, then more deeply, cool flicking brushes of teeth and tongue, harder thrusts. Every touch of skin upon slick skin was perfused with a strange kind of fascination, a proprietary wonder.

Even still, the clasp on Raziel’s shoulder tightened, keeping him from moving too much nor too far under Kain’s attentions. A soft gasp from Raziel’s throat as he strove upwards was met by a harder nip at the fullness of his lower lip, a bright spark of pain. Kain’s hand left his hair, and then Raziel could scent fresh blood, not his own. There was a warmth before his face, the wet sound of thick vitae smeared upon flesh. “And again, my Raziel,” Kain rumbled, darksome command.

Raziel growled low in his throat, a throttled sound of need rather than anger, as Kain's lips left his. His nostrils flared at the bloodscent, fresh, dark, and potent. With an eagerness born of more than simple hunger, he bent his head to his Sire's command, heedless of the sparks of pain from the talons that held him fast. Dark lips parted to lick and suckle at Kain's talons once again, his own blood mingling as devotion overrode caution and he nicked his tongue upon the razored edges. The taste ... was heady, moreso than anything he had found in Haven. Each lick, each taste sparked of dark and electric across his tongue, teasing his senses until his whole body seemed to thrum with the desire for more, shivering like a struck tuning fork in his Sire's grip.

The blood was gone far too quickly under Raziel's ardent attentions, and he pressed himself harder against Kain's legs, not quite rubbing, but needing to touch and taste even more. He rubbed his face blindly against Kain's hands, pushing further until he could lay lips upon the cool skin of his sire's chest, drinking in that scent and letting it permeate every fiber of his senses. "N-need .... Kain, I ..."

That beautiful dark head, bowed now to Kain’s service, Raziel’s dark tongue sweeping slick over the smoothness of the back of his talons, the grooved pattern of his palm… “Sublime, mine own – so eager,” Kain breathed. His hand left Raziel’s shoulder, fisted controllingly in the blindfold at the back of Raziel’s head instead, but he made no move to prevent Raziel from pressing close, from pressing the severe symmetry of his mouth to Kain’s sternum.

But there was more blood, a gouge drawn slowly down the center of Kain’s frame below Raziel’s chin, the scent heavy and ozone as the cloud-split an instant before lightning, raw armored muscle sealing over as it was cleaved. Kain’s talons paused between their bodies, the smooth backs of his fingers spreading blood over a further hardness between them. His grasp tight at the back of Raziel’s head, Kain eased him lower.

Raziel offered no resistance; not with the scent of Kain's blood and arousal to lure him onward. He kissed what flesh he could reach even as that taloned hand forced him ever downward, straining forward, licking at the hard planes of chest and stomach ....

Then the blunt touch of what could only be Kain's erect flesh brushed his face, rubbed against his cheek. Raziel breathed outward, bathing it in a warm exhalation, turning his head to lick eagerly at the blood-smeared flesh. Kain's hand was hard on his head, a silent command; and Raziel knew his duty.

And a most pleasurable duty it was.

Kain's cock was iron-hard, fully erect and imposing, even before the first long stroke of his tongue. Surely it was being blindfolded that made that flesh seem ... thicker, heavier and less delicate. No doubt both memory and his own desires had conspired to deceive him, to make him think his lips had caressed over the subtle ripples of unyielding armor underneath the more familiar velveteen flesh. Raziel embraced the illusion, licking and nibbling with practiced care, shielding fangs from his Sire's flesh even as he laved every last inch; and then, when there was no more blood, fitted his mouth over that broad head, striving to capture the remembered taste of Kain's seed.

Cut metal fresh from the stone that enwombed it, the iron essence of new blood cracked from the marrow of bone – the taste was hot along Raziel’s palate, sparking across his tongue. Kain shuddered finely with pleasure, the muscles of his flanks and thighs clenching as he restrained the instinctive thrusting evoked by that too-talented mouth. Kain’s grasp of the blindfold prevented Raziel from taking any more than the tip of his cock between his fangs, for long past were the ages when this act had been easy… or even possible without the removal of Raziel’s eyeteeth. And that – that was a reprimand Raziel had not earned this morning. Not yet.

The way Raziel’s lips closed over the head, the slickness and stretch of his mouth – the perfection drew forth a deep rumble, a jolting sound as if Kain swallowed a gasp. And then those dark lips sealed tight around his thickness, Raziel’s tongue flicking, lashing as he sucked strongly. Hot golden pleasure spilled into the soul-deep link between them, bliss spiced by a careful scrape of Raziel’s incisors…. Kain tightened his grip, pulled Raziel abruptly away. _Magnificent._ “Stand for me, my Raziel. I would have you unclad.”

In this, Raziel was not quite so obedient; a small growl escaped as he resisted Kain's attempt to pull him away from his prize, the now slick and lovely hard flesh that had preoccupied all his attention. Muscles tensed, taloned fingers digging inward in mute resistance as the power of his Sire's grip made itself known. In the end, Raziel submitted, sure only that his neck was liable to snap under Kain's heavy hand if he did not.

Back on his feet more through Kain's strength than his own, Raziel licked his lips, feeling light-headed under the rush of Hunger and desire that shivered just beneath his skin. With both hair and blindfold gripped tight in Kain's fist, he turned his head as best he could towards the sound of that dark voice. His pauldrons and the attached gorget were gone, already stripped from him by Kain's whim. All that remained were the bracers upon his forearms, his boots ... and his breeches.

Kain snarled, forced to stand himself in order to drag Raziel along as his eldest resisted – so capable, even bled like this. The revelation of such potency was deeply pleasing, and Kain assuaged his ire with no discipline more serious than a deep growl and a hard, brief bite at the juncture of Raziel’s shoulder and throat. The twin punctures into muscle drew little enough blood, even that laved away by a broad, rough stroke of Kain’s tongue. Gradually, the tight grip upon Raziel’s blindfold eased; Kain’s hand settled on his hip, steadying, as solid as granite. “Your breeches, Raziel,” Kain prompted, the leather under his hand already tearing against the sharp edges of his talons.

Even blindfolded, Raziel's fingers knew well the pattern of lacings that kept his low-slung breeches closed, and it was with a certain amount of undignified haste that he undid them, ripping them open. His aching cock pushed outward from its confinement, begging for freedom even as Raziel eased the front placket aside and hooked thumb-talons to shove the tight dragon-hide downward.

With Kain's grip no longer so restrictive, he bent, shoving the leather off of his legs. There he met with the expected resistence of his booted feet, and was forced to kneel in front of his Sire once more, his head bent in a parody of obeisance as he fumbled at the catches of his greaves with impatient fingers.

Kain’s lips curled in a soundless snarl, evidence of his own impatience, as Raziel’s talons grated over a metal catch in his haste, denting the steel and fouling the clasp of the heavy boot. Kain’s talons wrapped around Raziel’s upper arm, hauling the winged vampire upright, dragging him close. “Never in warfare repeat the tactics which have once gained you victory…” the rumble shivered over Raziel’s skin even as his cock was jerked against the rough, armored planes of Kain’s belly. Kain wrapped an arm around Raziel’s back, pinning wings to his own frame.

Kain’s weight shifted, grinding Raziel’s organ against the only part of Kain that ever went soft at any point. “…but let your methods be regulated by…” And then Kain drove one heavy, sharp-edged boot down, between Raziel’s spread ankles. Though his toes only brushed the ground, the force of the blow -- upon leather and the stone on which the tent had been pitched -- jolted through Raziel’s body. The leather trousers, however, were severed down the center, leaving the leggings alone bunched around the top of each of Raziel's boots. “…the infinite variety of circumstances.”

The ripping of the leather was shockingly loud in the tent, almost seeming to echo the snarl that underlaid Kain's words. Uncertainty and discomfort made Raziel stiffen, made his lips peel back from fangs in an involuntary snarl of his own as he struggled for a moment against the crushing strength of the arm that had pinned his wings ... pinned *him*.

Questioning his Sire when Kain was in a mood such as this was undertaken only under the direst of circumstances, as Raziel well knew. Far better to remain silent than to risk sparking Kain's mercurial temper with ill-considered questions. Besides, there were other things that demanded an answer, not the least of which lay in the aching flesh between his legs, now pinned between their bodies and rubbing vainly against the unyielding muscle of his Sire's abdomen. Raziel sucked in a breath, stilling the urge to struggle further. Relaxing was out of the question; not in such a vulnerable position. But he could yield, if only minutely; offering Kain his rightful spoils.

Raziel’s snarl, against the heavy leathery hide of Kain’s shoulder, went unremarked and perhaps even unnoticed, but the slight, unbidden cant of his hips against Kain’s did not. Kain’s rough grip on Raziel’s upper arm loosened, smoothed down Raziel’s side instead. “You shall not turn your foes upon one another,” he clarified. The chevron-ridges of his palm teased and scratched at Raziel’s skin. “Not when they know you and yours.” Not, too, when those foes were equal in experience and training to most Razielim, not when Raziel’s plan rested upon his infrequently practiced ability to secretly and convincingly play murderer and manipulator. Kain’s talons spread, gripping the muscular curve of Raziel’s ass, urging his thigh to wing wide, pressing their hips together.

As easily as if Raziel weighed nothing at all, Kain sat once more, this time with Raziel straddling. His hand left Raziel’s hip, and then came the sharp, now-familiar little shudder as the fabric of space opened, warped around Kain’s will. A small snap sounded, as if of a flask broken open. Raziel caught the neutrally metallic scent of weapons oil a moment before Kain’s hand returned, closing slick and careful around both their cocks.

"...unh!" Raziel sucked in a breath and held it, shuddering under the grip of that taloned hand. It was good--sensation rippling with each minute shift of that hard-calloused hand, the careful prick of talons around both of them. Raziel couldn't keep himself from reacting, his legs clamping down on the outside of Kain's thighs as he lifted himself upward, blindly seeking more.

"Wh--what, then, do you suggest ...?" he managed to pant after a moment, trying to recover some tattered shred of dignity and failing utterly.

Kain stroked, consideringly, even as the gold haze of his own pleasure rose, bled once more through the unobstructed soul-link betwixt them. Raziel’s cock was a fragile thing against his own, so achingly soft. He squeezed a little harder, watched faint dusky bruises rise momentarily upon the velveteen skin, relished the hiss of Raziel’s indrawn breath. “Military weakness arises from having to prepare against possible attacks…” Kain murmured, intent more upon the slick of flesh over flesh. He passed the roughness of the underside of one talon over the so-sensitive head of Raziel’s cock, even as he nipped at the underside of Raziel’s throat. The flare of pleasure and pain both made the winged vampire’s body seize against his – unutterably enthralling.

When Raziel was gasping openly, writhing, Kain withdrew his hand, closing it upon Raziel’s hip. “...military strength, from compelling your adversary to make these preparations against you.” With Kain’s arm still tight around his back, Raziel could not stop him lifting the slighter vampire. The blunt tip of Kain’s cock found the cleft of Raziel’s unprepared ass. “Shall I aid you?” There was mercy in those words, clear, almost gentle.

Mercy meant that Kain would wrap his talons beneath Raziel’s thighs, use Raziel’s own weight to force him down upon the waiting cock.

Raziel bit back the snappish reply that had risen to his lips, knowing it would do more harm than good. Military platitudes were all well and good, but Kain had been most thorough in ensuring that whatever mental faculties left to Raziel were focussed on one thing only ... and it wasn't his Clan's predicament.

That broad head nudged against his hole, insistent, implacable. Raziel shuddered, his talons clawing at Kain's armored skin in his indecision. The pain was nothing. Not compared to the Abyss. But ... some spark of trepidation still remained. Kain's rewards ... were oft more dangerous than his punishments.

"....do it." The words were harsh, bitten off and rough, but their ferocity was marred by Raziel's own need. _....p-please, my lord ..._ the Whisper came unbidden, granting this younger Kain the title Raziel had only ever called the elder.

 _My beautiful killer…_ the contact was returned, magnified, compounded, an enveloping and cradling contingence. There was black amusement in that touch as Kain watched his firstborn control his tongue – the struggle writ clear on Raziel’s face.

As Raziel’s hands kneaded at his shoulders, Kain slowly loosed his grasp around Raziel’s back, easing the pressure on his folded wings. His hands tightened cruelly upon Raziel’s hips, talons curving under his thighs, supporting. There was a moment of unbalance as Raziel’s cloven hooves left the ground, his full mass effortlessly in Kain’s razored hands. Then he was adjusted, centered. The teasing contact became a pressure against his puckered little opening, became a slow, aching pain. Then, too slick with oil, the tip of Kain’s cock slipped out of alignment.

Kain snarled shortly, the faint trembling of his muscles having nothing to do with the effort of supporting Raziel. “Reach back,” he commanded, “and position me.”

Still blindfolded, Raziel did as he was bid, panting in anticipation ... and a certain amount of dread. One taloned hand released his grip on Kain's shoulder, felt downward, past the temptation of his own needy cock--and carefully wrapped around the Kain's thicker, harder shaft. Sucking in another breath, Raziel hesitated, feeling as if he once again stood upon the edge of a precipice, wondering if he could trust himself to fly or to fall ...

Then he shifted, pressed Kain's cock to his opening. There was a brief moment of pressure, a slick nuzzle of hardness against unarmored and vulnerable skin; and then the broad head pushed its way inexorably inward, breaking him open. A short, sharp cry escaped his throat as Raziel threw his head backwards, baring his fangs in a snarl of pain.

“Yes, Raziel,” Kain grated, the serrated edges of his talons drawing jagged scrapes on Raziel’s pure white hide. The shock of that sound, the way Raziel’s throat caught, hitched abjectly on the pain – oh, _yes. Just so, mine own – let me hear it…._ His own sending came laced with sparking pleasure, molten gold. Raziel’s flesh clasped him, parted before him, as around the length of a blade; the clench around him velvety, so tight it seemed as if there was no path for him at all. But once begun, the penetration was inexorable.

And torturous. The tip forced in, muscle parting reluctantly against it, giving way, the pausing only at the widest point, the flange around the head, as if Kain relished Raziel’s helpless hurt equally as his own pleasure. Kain held him there for an instant, an eternity upon the brink – and then his talons carved harder into Raziel’s skin, and the shaft began to sink in, too hard, too fast. Had Raziel done this himself, had he chosen to force himself down upon that inevitability, Kain might have permitted him time enough to adjust, to relax around the thickness. But now, like this, there was no respite, no rest, only the endless ache of hard-ridged armor coring him, filling him.

Try as he might, Raziel could not suppress the sounds that escaped his throat. Short and hitched with pain, they were more gasps than any kind of plea, a wordless voicing of pain commingled with need. Kain's shaft was inexorable, broad and thick and solid as mahogany. Raziel, in his mind, remembered it--knew that to ease his Sire's entrance, he needed to accept, to relax .... But still, against everything he knew to be true, it felt as if his body, this new-made flesh, had never before known Kain's possession, and he could not suppress the involuntary clenching, the rippling of resistance as his body did its best to expel the inexorable invasion. Fine tremors shivered over his skin, reverberated over his frame, held taut and pinned astride Kain's lap, his wings tremoring. There was no escape from this, even if he so desired it--he knew that with bone-deep certainty ... and a strange sense of comfort.

Kain's progress was inexorable, pulling him downward, and every moment seemed like an eternity. He fought against that grip, even knowing the outcome, trying to pull up and away, and felt the slide of his Sire's talons into his flesh, the trickle and scent of his own blood in response. There was a moment, a pause in the burning, tearing ache of Kain's possession--and then it was complete, that massive armored length seated deep inside him, every tiny shift a reminder of Kain's primacy over body and mind.

Kain mouthed at that proffered throat, ungentle scrapes of long canines, pain-edged kisses, as if he would taste Raziel's cries through the sheath of his flesh. "Well done, mine own," he murmured, rocking Raziel down that final fraction of an inch, painfully grinding his hips down into their joining. For a moment he forced no further movement, just reveled in the feel, the impossible tightness of the grip around him, tight and soft at the tip, the deep band of muscle wrapped just behind the head of his cock, the subtle quaking of Raziel's body -- as perfect as if his firstborn had been sculpted for him alone.

The respite was only momentary. Kain's grip on Raziel's hips eased, and he growled a low rumble as Raziel's own talons tightened, flexiing at his shoulders. The loss of contact was fleeting, however, for the gripping, ridged texture of Kain's broad talons scraped up, past the small of Raziel's back, the broad sheaves of muscle that powered vertical ascent in flight, and then the juncture of Raziel's wings. A brief hesitation, as if the weight of history were a solid and shielding force, and then Kain spread his palm there, cupping the joints with utter assurance. Kain's hands had perhaps learned something of those wings -- for his fingers found tender junctures of tendon, pressed up against the bone, baring places where the skin was so very, very soft under the murderous chitin edges, the catchingly rough pattern of grooves and ridges..

Raziel may not have had the wherewithal to notice Kain's second hand leaving his hip, reaching out. But he surely noticed the rupture of space as Kain plucked an object from betwixt the dimensions.

The box was little more than the length of a talon, half that wide. The carvings that crawled across the top were worn by time and touch, an abstraction of thorns and twisting vine-like runnels. Within lay a bed of dark velvet, upon which glowed twenty-four slim copper needles. Varying in length, they all bore tiny barbs -- made retractible by a minute and clever internal mechanism -- at one end, smooth-cut rubies at the other, like droplets of blood, or pomegranate seeds.

Blinded and unknowing, Raziel nonetheless could feel the prickle of the magic that accompanied the box's appearance, the energies washing over his skin. He shuddered convulsively, the quailing of muscle born of instinct more than cowardice, as Kain's razored hand settled over the juncture of his wings. He couldn't seem to quell them, not with his Sire so close, sunk so deep, every twitch and shiver bringing a new stab of pain. Kain knew too well what he was doing; and had Raziel the capacity to think, he would have questioned how his too-young Sire had come by such knowledge. As it was, he could not speak, could only arch into the fangs that raked his throat, heedless of the pain, clutching blindly at the thread of connection between them as if it were the only surety there was.

 _Ka ... Kain, please, I--_ That hand shifted over his wings, sharp-edged talons catching. He couldn't help but flinch; a jerk more suited to a blade sunk deep into his vitals than the relatively gentle caress. _I don't ..._

That instinctive flinch did not escape Kain’s attention. “Easy, my Raziel,” Kain murmured, breathing the words against Raziel’s lips, as if he might press them into the winged vampire’s mouth, ease them down his throat, _I am with you._ Kain’s sending was an echo, a primal pulse deep within Raziel’s mind, inextricable. His corrugated palm stroked slowly over the juncture of Raziel’s wings, over trembling muscle, corded tendon.

Kain’s heavy talons came to rest upon a broad band of muscle at the base of Raziel’s right wing, the pectoralis. It was lower on Raziel’s back than the tender juncture, partially armored by the thin subdermal plates that protected the rest of Raziel’s back. The slow, rough caress was pleasant there, a drawing, tugging sensation across Raziel’s chest to where the muscle connected to his sternum. “Every downstroke of your wings begins here, Raziel,” Kain murmured, breath warm upon Raziel’s skin at the curve of his jaw, _the serratus anterior. Feel now how deep it lies, just above the arch of your ribs._

Kain’s shoulders moved a little under Raziel’s grasp as he laid the box near them, the scuff of wood sounding soft on the packed soil and stone floor. The hinges rasped as the container was opened, a distinctive scraping of steel upon steel.

The talons tightened. The thick band of muscle was resistive, difficult to massage and knead aside, made moreso by Raziel’s quaking tension. The edges of Kain’s talons scored shallowly into platinum-white skin as he applied greater strength, the wing's corresponding upstroke muscles flexing in protest at the unnatural and aching stretch, lifting the wing, forcing exposure. Kain’s free hand moved once more and a point of bitter cold touched skin, scraped, found the seam between armor plates.

Raziel's head turned, a new waiting stillness falling over him as he registered the faint rasp of metal upon metal. There was only one blade he truly feared; and he knew Kain had not brought the Reaver. There was no way *that* blade could approach without him feeling that hungry, all-encompassing pull at the moorings of his soul.

"Unh!" _Kain ... w-what do you intend ...?_ There was a sharp pinprick upon his back, a touch that hinted of further pain. Raziel's face, already drawn in taut, agonized lines, half-concealed by the drape over his eyes, did not change, but remained focused, waiting. He had no real expectation that Kain would answer his half-formed plea ... this was not the first time his Sire had played out such games.

Kain’s answer was a harder bite, a stinging reprimand. “ _Focus,_ ” the command was explicitly issued this time. Like any bird of prey, Raziel adapted instantly to changing circumstances, be they wind speed or the tides of battle. On the reverse of the coin, of course, that facet of his nature rendered Raziel… distractible. Too many sensations, emotions, a plague of worries kept Raziel from the full implications of the moment, blinded him.

It did not matter, of course. By the end of this game, Kain would see Raziel broken into pure and perfect awareness. And Kain would enjoy every moment of that breaking.

The icy pinprick at Raziel’s back transmuted into flame, a barbed lance plunged deep.

"Aah-!" It was the shock more than the pain that surprised the cry from him. The taloned fingers that had been resting tensely upon Kain's shoulders spasmed, gouged deep past the resistance of armor, trading wound for wound.

The singular fact of where the barb had been placed seemed to magnify the feel of the wound all out of proportion to its size--the agony ballooning as his wings jerked, tried to unfurl to aid in an escape that would not come. That, combined with the deep internal ache that was Kain's cock, still buried deep, conspired to drive the last vestiges of pleasure from his flesh, leaving nothing but a cold emptiness and a kind of dread. Raziel fought--he did not know how not to--scrabbling in vain for some kind of leverage, to push himself away as memory and instinct threatened to overcome his obedience. Right now, he could not seem to focus on anything except the pain, the familiarity of it, the memory of all the times Kain had tormented him, used him as catspaw and pawn--until he had finally had broken his firstborn, tossing him to his fate in the Abyss.

Despite it, he could not bring himself to turn on his tormentor, to savage Kain with fangs and talons and all the magic at his disposal. Not quite. Not yet.

Raziel’s wings fanned wide, the motion hitching with shock, but unhindered. Entirely separate sets of muscles worked to fold and unfold the membranous ailerons, and they were unimpeded, whether Raziel recognized that or no. Kain made no move to contain the reflex action – it only exposed more tender joints.

If Kain experienced any amusement at Raziel’s righteous fury – palpable through the wide-open link – it was well-concealed. As was the pain as Raziel’s talons cut deep black-seeping punctures, gouges that closed over like ripples drawn in water. Indeed, Raziel’s struggle, hampered though it might be, was nothing short of enchanting. So very sweet. Kain released the haft of the needle before sinking it to the ruby and reached up, cupping the side of Raziel’s face. He laid a kiss, oddly soft, upon Raziel’s tight-clenched lips. _Easy, mine own. Tsaa…_ Kain’s hand left Raziel’s face; copper scraped softly. _Another now._ The cold pinprick returned, this time to the mirrored spot beneath Raziel’s left wing.

Raziel tensed, sucking in a breath, every muscle wire-taut as there was a moment of anticipatory dread--and then the second needle slid home, metal piercing flesh and sliding deep into the dense muscle. Dark lips peeled back from clenched teeth as Raziel fought back the cry that tried to escape from his throat.

 _W-Why ... ?_ What had he done? What trespass had Kain decided merited such punishment? His wings trembled, and each minute shiver vibrated against the barbs embedded in his flesh, sending sharp, hot spikes of pain with each tiny movement.

“Concentrate,” the deep rumble of Kain’s command seemed to settle bone-deep. Again, he did not quite sink the needle to its base. But he lingered this time, tapping the copper shaft lightly, nudging it, readjusting. Every sharp bolt of pain evoked an exquisite and rippling echo up through Raziel’s body, spawned more cries to lodge at the back of Raziel’s throat. Kain slid his palms upwards, past the paired rubies, and found once more the softest juncture of Raziel’s wings. Tendons massed thick there, under velveteen skin. _This node of nervous tissue conveys sensation, Raziel, but not motility._

Just what was he supposed to concentrate on? Frustration tightened Raziel's grip, forced a keening growl from his throat. He tried to twist away from that new touch--only to have the iron-hard shaft inside him shift, digging deep into soft, aching flesh. The needles provided a counterpoint to that ache, singing with white-hot sharp, stabbing points. A flare of defiance and anger flavored their connection. _My wings are not toys for your amusement!_

Raziel had walked the fine line betwixt Kain’s temper and his amusement before; this time, frustration led him to misstep. Kain had him by the throat in an eyeblink, a bare fraction of a moment. _You mistake yourself._ Just that, and the sudden prickle of another needle just to one side of his spine, between the tender subscapular ligaments, the sensitive place that lovers learned to caress. The smell of gathering charge hung in the air for an instant.

Discharge came with the needle’s penetration, copper wire carrying an intensely shocking flash of current, sparks like miniature bolts of lightening leaping to the other two imbedded needles.

Vampires couldn't pass out. That didn't mean they couldn't desperately want to.

The charged needle stabbed inward, and brought with it an electrical bolt that forced a hoarse scream from Raziel's throat as he convulsed. Every muscle clenched--tight enough, it felt, to snap even vampiric bone and tendon--and the scent of ozone and burnt flesh filled the air, mingling with the blood already spilled.

All thought fled, leaving only pain, and the necessity of enduring it. Raziel could do nothing but wait, his hands and his body clenched around Kain's strength as if his Sire were a pillar in a storm, until the lightning had passed. The sudden blissful release from his agony made him slump as all his strength seemed to give way at once, his limbs trembling with the aftershocks.

In the aftermath, Kain’s palm cupped his face once more, smoothing over Raziel’s brow, his lips, the veiled orbit of his eyes, the now-light touch at his throat steadying him when his head would have lolled. Kain murmured something, perhaps words, perhaps naught but a low purr. _I have you – ah, beautiful killer._ Oh, to witness Raziel so, to experience that convulsion around his own penetration, so tight it hurt… exquisite, incomparable. An honor. But the point could not be skirted, had to be made clear: “Now. What are you, Raziel?”

Mind still hazed from the intensity of the pain, Raziel had no idea what answer Kain wished. But answer he must--he knew that much.

"I ... " His voice was hoarse, not from his screams, but from the ache of holding so many others back. He tried to right himself, succeeded only partially, his hands still shaking as they scrabbled against Kain's armored skin. "I ... am a vampire ... f-first of your blood ..."

 _Raziel…_ Kain nuzzled lightly against Raziel’s temple, releasing his throat, something like exasperation in the gesture. He at last permitted the winged vampire to take the full measure of the refuge he sought, enfolding him close against the length of Kain’s own frame. He stroked Raziel’s hair for a moment, the soft mane dampened – vampires perspired only under rare circumstances, such as severe duress. Kain sighed a cool breath of amusement – his firstborn could needlessly complicate *anything* -- even as he reached to select several more needles. “Try again, Raziel,” he rumbled, settling one of the points near the topmost of the imbedded lengths… and then guiding it home into dense, nerve-laced flesh. The sudden, stabbing penetration was followed, without warning or pause, by a second, just to one side.

"Ah!" The sound was forced from him, sharp and startled. Cradled within Kain's embrace, Raziel flinched, then stilled, curling his fingers into his Sire's solid, immutable flesh. What did Kain want from him? For a moment, his mind seemed to clear. Kain wanted only what his Sire had always wanted ...

... everything.

He tried to hold on to that stillness, to not twitch a muscle, lest he be rewarded once again by the stabbing of the needles in his flesh. _...I am ..._ Some scrap of defiance made him hesitate. But the words would only seal what his flesh had already admitted. " ...y-yours, my lord. I serve you ..." He tightened his grip in trepidation and relief.

There was a third pinprick of cold at the juncture of Raziel’s wings, but this time, Kain paused, a respite. He cupped the back of Raziel’s head, feeling the tension across the other vampire’s neck and shoulders. Something in his tone, when he spoke, could have been bemusement, for betwixt Raziel’s words there lay a rub, did there not? Kain’s augeries were by no means entirely reliable predictions of the future, but he had some inkling of the possible paths of history spooling out before Raziel… or behind him. “Whether you serve me or no, child, mine you remain,” he murmured. The posession was unconditional; could not be otherwise -- even in the most pragmatic sense. Raziel’s creation had necessitated more than simply an infusion of life energy or a captured spirit; it had required a segment of Kain’s soul. That mark of ownership was indissoluable. Regardless of Raziel’s choices.

“As such, your pleasure is at my will; as too your pain.” It hardly bore repeating – or wouldn’t, if Raziel had not in his pride sought to deny Kain his rightful due. But while Raziel might seek the former, the latter bore its own instructional opportunities… and was at least as enthralling for Kain. “Suffering, mine own, may usher dissolution, bewilderment – or it can companion clarity. The difference lies in your retroaction. You know this.” Raziel had learned those lessons before, hundreds of times. The pinprick of cold heighened to a slow burn as the needle tip began to ease through skin. “Think, Raziel. What are the fundamental assumptions of the Dumahim who hound your steps?”

 _Yes._ There was a brief moment of calm, even with the needle sliding into his flesh. The pain was still there, but in the face of Kain's claim, it seemed ephemeral indeed. _Yours ..._

"They assume ... they are hunting Razielim. Fugitives and outlaws, rendered demoralized and without direction by ..." he broke off to gasp as the needle lanced deep. "... b-by my death ...." He did not know if the answer was the one Kain expected, but he could think of no other. He trembled--then stilled again, trying to hold on to that fleeting moment of acceptance.

“Very good, Raziel,” that much Raziel had concluded previously, but then he had been distracted, worried, unable to unravel the conundrum before him. The brief tremmoring of Raziel’s body was Kain’s own distraction – there was such elegance in the play of dim light across Raziel’s skin, the fine play of muscles around him, the way Raziel’s words ghosted agianst his own armored shoulder…. So beautiful. _All warfare is deception,_ Kain eased the reminder into Raziel’s shock-open mind, even as he reached for another needle, ran the point of it slowly over the swells of muscle and tendon past Raziel's shoulder, across his back, to the joints of his half-mantled wings. “Now. How best can the Dumahim be neutralized?”

"We can--cannot provoke an open battle," Raziel gasped, feeling the prickle of metal against his armored skin. The fine hair on the back of his neck lifted at the sharp-pointed, metallic sensations it created. "To do so would only reveal our hand .... We must divert--or d-distract them ..." _But how?_ Therein was the rub.

Once, Kain had been in the habit of answering the questions put to him simply, directly. That, however… had changed. He nosed aside a stray strand of Raziel’s hair, breathed a ephemeral kiss against his scalp. “How have you learned to beguile the eyes of men, to pass unnoticed in their midst?” The point of the needle caught, prickled, then slid slowly home, deep into the tender juncture betwixt Raziel’s wings.

"You ... you taught me ..." Confusion threatened to shatter his fragile calm; Raziel clung to it just as he did Kain, trying to think past the distraction of the needles. "To form the illusion of what they expect to see ... in my m-mind, to push it into theirs ..." But Kain had already scorned such petty trickery ... what use would it be against the Dumahim?

Kain’s clawtips lingered upon the newly inserted needle, its barbs fixing it firmly in the thickness of Raziel’s flight muscle. “You offer up an expected vision; thus, it is accepted, the lie is swallowed.” One long talon tilted the ruby-tipped shaft, making the tip shiver where it lay. “Still easier it is to deceive with a half-truth.”

"Wh--anh!" Raziel panted briefly, a reflexive sucking in of breath that he had not truly needed in millennia. The minute twitches of the needle that Kain was toying with made him want to flinch, to move like a puppet on strings, jerking this way and that in helpless reaction. "W-what truth could possibly deter the Dumahim from their hunt?" He could not impersonate Dumah, not to the degree that would be required, nor any Dumahim elder with any kind of reknown or authority. Kain--if he had known Raziel's brethren sufficiently well--might have had the skill ... but he was not minded to let his too-young Sire risk himself thus in any case. The potential risk to the timeline was far too great. Which meant ... what was left?

Kain’s lips tightened, as did his talon-tips around the small ruby. Raziel had played the part of the free agent for far too long. “You have more resources available to you than your own body and magics, or even mine. Employ a portion of your Razielim, and give your pursuants…” and he twisted the slim needle, the barbs tearing through deep internal muscle, “ _…what they expect._ ”

Raziel stiffened in agony as the barbs ripped through his back muscles, tearing the dense fibers apart before they could re-heal. "You would suggest--I send a portion of my fighting force out to play hare to the Dumahim? To sacrifice them, when I have already lost so many--and with the enemy that you know still awaits us?" His voice rose in frustration and anger, despite the danger of rousing his Sire's ire further. His clan was more than chits to be traded or discarded as the whim struck! And he had not travelled this far and fought this hard, only to spend them so recklessly! What was Kain thinking?

Kain relished the hard spasm, but released the little barb quickly enough. He laid a broad talon across Raziel’s lips. “If, how, and when you retrieve your bait is your perogative,” he said. Just, of course, as the retrival of his entire clan was Raziel’s responsibility. Raziel had units that were exquisitely practiced in guerilla warfare, particularly against the Dumahim, so the danger to the men involved was not – or should not be -- great. Kain’s hand moved, Raziel could hear the scrape of copper needles being withdrawn from their case. Kain tilted his head, considering. “If you fear for your ability to locate and teleport your kindred quickly, once you are beyond the reach of Zephon's snare, leave… me with them,” he allowed.

"That is not an option," Raziel snapped, daring to contradict his Sire directly despite his predicament. All of this mad gamble could come to naught if his fledgling Sire was imperiled--Raziel would sooner go himself than have Kain take such a chance.

Still--the suggestion was a good one, and Raziel found himself a bit perturbed that he had not considered it before. Though, to be certain, he had been ... just a little distracted. "How will ..." Another gasp and reflexive snarl interrupted the words as another needle slid home in his flesh. "How will ... such a group ensure they have the entirety of the Dumahim's interest?" Perhaps if they hit the camp, fast and hard, and bloodied them enough--Dumah's spawn, like their Sire, were easily enraged.

Kain snorted softly, his palm skimming roughly over the rubied tips of several needles, making them jerk and tremble. “Need the fox do aught to attract the hounds’ attention, save show itself?” he asked rhetorically. Kain’s hand found the bony plates of the primary wing juncture. He cupped the delicate joint in a corrugated palm. “Your concern should focus less on what lies behind, and more upon what awaits before. You understand now what Zephon desires, do you not? Mantle higher,” he said, pressing upwards, indicating the angle at which he desired Raziel to present his wings.

Raziel's snarl deepened at the reminder. Zephon's treachery--it was not a surprise. Raziel only wished that he had his brother in front of him, that he might snap that upstart insectoid neck for him. "He always was covetous of power," he snarled from behind clenched teeth--and with an effort of will, obediently lifted his wings, letting them unfurl and striving to ignore what it cost him in pain. _He wishes to claim my power--the power of your firstborn--through the blood of my Clan._ Unless Zephon had become more adept at thaumaturgy then Raziel knew, whatever magic his brother might try to possess by feasting upon Razielim would afford him little in the end.

“Well done, mine own,” Kain’s deep rumble seemed to settle in Raziel’s bones as he leaned forward and nipped at Raziel’s lower lip, withdrawing before the kiss could be deepened. The brief contact left a trace of thick black blood from bitten tongue upon Raziel’s mouth. For the moment, there was no further pain, just Kain’s long talons between the hafts of the needles, pressing lightly, stroking. “We may presume that Zephon’s spies have been observing for some while, and yet heve made no overt move against your massed clan. Tell me then, Raziel – how does Zephon intend to obtain the blood he hungers for?”

"You think ... he intends to steal my Razielim from under the Dumahim's collective noses?" Raziel said slowly, thinking as best he could. Even though he truly only wanted more Kain's mouth, his blood and his touch ... "Or would he have some other trap in mind?" It would be very like Zephon to use the Dumahim as beaters, flushing out the Razielim for his snares.

If Kain had an answer for that, he seemed disinclined to share. His talons tightened beneath the joint, pressing up, rough palm slipping by fractions over velvet-fine skin, leaving shallow little scrapes behind. It was a strange kind of stretch, as if Kain would effort to lift Raziel off his cock by his grip on the base of his wings alone – but the pressure eased as Kain identified the deep-seated ligaments he sought, before Raziel’s hips could shift more than a fraction. Kain’s shoulders moved as he reached for more needles. “How would you do it, Raziel, were you in his place?” One cold pinprick touched Raziel’s back, angled oddly, so that the shaft might slide up under the bone of the joint.

"Were I myself--or were I Zephon?" Raziel said drily--then hissed as the needle slid home, slicing underneath the bony plate. The spike of agony made him jerk--which caused the other needles to move as well, turning the muscles that supported his wings into a symphony of pain. "Aah! K-Kain!"

It took him a small eternity to still himself, his wings held stiffly at an unnatural angle, waiting for the pain to subside. "Wh-were I Zephon ... I would not risk my own skin. I would pi--unh! Pick off the leavings the Dumahim left behind--or should the opportunity arise, use them to harry the Razielim into a place and time that would better benefit the Zephonim." The Zephonim were able enough warriors, as such things were measured--better than the Melchiahim, most surely. But they had always fared poorly when it came to open battle with even the Turelim and Rahabim--against the Razielim and the Dumahim, they stood no chance at all.

“Just so, my Raziel,” Kain smoothed his hand down Raziel’s back, higher, where no needles had yet pierced. “He has good cause not to risk a large force.” In part, that stemmed less from cowardice and more from the fact that Zephon could not seem to be in competition with his more milliataristic brethern for the spoils of Raziel’s lands. “But he knows your numbers and those of the Dumahim, knows they can only slow and bloody you, not force you to abandon a battlefield of wounded.” Kain permitted Raziel a few moments to envision that, to imagine a carrion-creature’s delight at so many weak and immobile warriors, without a Lord to speak for them before Kain. But the Dumahim presently close behind the Razielim, even all grouped, were a third their number.

The next needle pricked, just at the same place, but on the other side of Raziel’s spine. This time, the pain came not so quickly; Kain just held the point there, tasting the anticpation mount. “Who, then, posesses the force to pose a true threat?”

It took Raziel only a moment to know the answer. "Turel. Only Turel alone could annhilate the Razielim in a single stroke." He spoke quickly, his voice and face tight with apprehension as he waited for the new stab of agony. But he did not make the mistake of pleading for mercy; he knew Kain that well, at least.

The Rahabim and Dumahim combined could have done it, or some other combination of the Clans' might. In time, Raziel was sure his Clan would have withered and died out regardless. But to decimate them all in a single decisive war of annihilation--that would take the numbers that only the Turelim possessed.

Kain rumbled, a hum both contemplative and delicative, as if Raziel's quickness pleased Kain just as much as his dread. Raziel's unwillingness to plead proved wise. Kain would have enjoyed a request for mercy very thoroughly, would have taken particular care to heighten the pain. The needle pricked, a brief hurt -- and then the pressure eased. "Then you understand the nature of the dilema before you," he said, reversing the slender needle. The faceted ruby tip glided smoothly over Raziel's skin in small, delicate swirls. "And you know the objectives of two of the players." The Dumahim wanted to shed blood; the Zephonim simply wanted blood.

"But what of the third player? Turel's generals, in Ywain." The amusement in that statement was carefully contained. As it so happened, after Raziel's own assault upon the Sanctary of the Clans, Turel himself was... indisposed. And likely to remain that way for a rather substantial length of time.

Despite the unexpected reprieve, Raziel did not relax--*could* not, in truth. Not with Kain's cock still hard and deep within him and his wings stiffly angled, held away from the needles lancing his flesh. There was no position now he could take that would not inflict pain--which was undoubtedly what Kain had intended all along.

"The Turelim ... Ywain is a strategic prize. I do not think they would abandon it lightly. But if the Dumahim managed to harry the Razielim to them--there is no doubt they would fall upon us like wolves." The deaths of his Clan might afford the Turelim a great deal of pleasure, but little profit, given what they had already claimed.

Kain bent his head, found Raziel’s throat, and kissed there, dual prickling scrapes of fang. “Your clan is a threat to their holdings,” Kain agreed. “The Turelim would have to dispose of them eventually.” An areal view slid into Raziel’s consciousness, a breathtakingly clear vision of a massively fortified township, tucked into high mountain crags. The human population was too great for the castle proper, extensive though it was; ramshackle dwellings spilled across the slopes of slag. Flames blossomed in the dimness – newly manned forges, extracting metals from the rich ores that threaded below. Heavily armored Turelim elders stalked the paraphet walls.

The vision was not so intense as to mask the scent of gathering charge, of electricity in the air. “But how shall the Turelim respond, Raziel, if they know your force means to beseige them?”

The vision was familiar, and triggered a pang of angry regret deep in his chest. Ywain and the bounty of its surrounding lands had been his, once. But no longer--and likely never again.

The air was heavy, as if it presaged the arrival of a storm, and his skin prickled with it. Raziel tensed further with the expectation of pain. "They will ... prepare for battle, of course. Call in what reinforcements they can from the lands around Ywain. They will not ally with the Dumahim or Zephonim, I think, unless necessity wills it--but they will use them. Zephonim for information, Dumahim to harry our flanks."

“Precisely, Raziel,” Kain agreed. The other vampire’s sudden tensing was delicious, exquisite. “Compel your adversary to prepare against attack, and thereby…” he stroked lightly across Raziel’s hair, and the length of fabric over his eyes, “…blind him to your true intentions. Tell me, mine own – how can you credibly convince Turel’s generals…” The ruby held delicately betwixt Kain’s talons clicked lightly against the tip one of the deeply imbedded barbs, making length of it shift painfully. The jolt of injury momentarily masked a sudden, fine vibration, a muted current, carefully controlled and further filtered through the pair of jewels. Slowly, like a diffusing droplet of ink, a sweet warmth began to spread through the pierced flesh, branching betwixt nerves. “…that you seek what you do not?”

Expecting pain, the sudden spreading pleasure caught Raziel off-guard. He shuddered as the vibrations teased his sensitized flesh, hinting at the promise of ecstasy underneath the pain. "H-hah ... perhaps ... make it appear as though the main body of my force is heading for Ywain. I-if they are relying upon the Zephonim for their intelligence, and we make it appear so to them ... then they will report so to the Turelim, in the hopes of gleaning the leftovers from the battle to come ..." Blinded, he could not see Kain's expression, nor the needles that gleamed with every involuntary movement, copper and scarlet highlighted against pale skin. He could only feel, and let the dark assurance of Kain's voice sink into him, down to his very bones.

Blindfolding, as Kain had good cause to know, rendered Raziel’s every emotion freer, more transparently writ across his face. So manifest was the need there, the pain and the pleasure both – beautiful, simply magnificent. “Yes, my Raziel,” the ruby was moved, and the slow pleasure began to fade. “Turelim are adverse to risk; they will retreat behind strong walls to construct their machines of war.” Turel’s whitefire arbalests could rain down flames – persistent even in water – over a range of miles. An assault upon Ywain, if the Turelim were warned and fully entrenched, would be disastrous. The ruby between Kain’s talons brushed skin, spreading an aching tingle, and then clicked against another embedded barb. Again, current flowed deeply. “And how, Raziel, shall you convince the Zephonim of your intent?”

Tiny, involuntary internal spasms shook Raziel's body as the electrified needle discharged its current, drawing the muscles of his back wire-tight. He dropped his head with a throttled groan--the only movement he could make that would not cause more pain--resting his forehead upon Kain's breastbone for support as he shivered in pained pleasure.

"The--the party sent to mislead the Dumahim. It can ... it can move towards Ywain, leave trails ..." He sucked in another breath, holding it for a moment as by doing so he might hold on to both his composure and the sensations that threatened it. "There is ... a canyon, some miles before the city, that leads around it." Raziel had known it well, in the centuries he had been lord of these lands. It had been used by caravans as a shortcut through the mountains upon occasion, though it had been not well-frequented due to the fact that it circumvented the valley entirely--few merchants wished to lose the rich trade that awaited in Ywain. The canyon itself had once been frequented by bandits as well, making it an unattractive prospect.

Neither consideration, however, mattered to Raziel's Clan. "We could appear as though the main force is heading for Ywain as well, only to swiftly divert from our course ... t-that would surely convince the Zephonim."

Kain nodded, exhaling himself as Raziel’s taut-muscled quaking intensified. He approved of Raziel’s choice of routes, though the shortcut did lead through more of the high mountain passes the Razielim traversed now. Early autumn in the rich valleys could be bitterly cold in the heights, and the weather could turn within an hour. The sending was undersence, subliminal, an impression eased deep into Raziel’s mind: _Lead your clan clear of the mountains within a tenday._ Even the most biting ice storms would not kill a vampire of any appreciable level of potence, but lack of suitable prey could tumble one into torpor. Kain could feel it, knew it – winter was descending upon his world.

“The Zephonim have their suspicions, Raziel, regarding the leadership of your clan. If they believe some doyen has taken the reins, united your kin to a purpose… give them what they expect. Let them intercept communications. And as for those who move too close, who might realize your chicanery….” Anguish and surrender had swept the mindlink between Kain and Raziel clear, scorched it wide and open, and now the sensations bleeding through were so beautifully intense. The ruby slid across Raziel’s skin; Kain found the deep tendon at the base of Raziel’s right wing, and set the tip of the needle just where he had pierced the left. Again the cold pinprick, the chill slide of agony – and this time, the low-wattage currant discharged directly through the needle, unfiltered by the jewels.

"We have elders enough--" Raziel broke off, arching in involuntary ecstasy, his wings convulsing heedless of the pain as the lightning coursed through his body. _K-Kain!_ his mind cried out, clinging to the echoed pleasure of his Sire, the searing golden satisfaction as each needle made itself known, cutting new wounds in the cords of his flight muscles. Even after all this, Kain's erection had not flagged the slightest; the wounds made by his entry had long healed, and the hardness shifted, making its presence known with each involuntary spasm.

"A-Anani or Goran would be convincing enough a-as a ruse," he panted, each word bitten off as he shuddered. Both had authority enough to command the Razielim in his absence. Or so the Zephonim would need to be made to think.

 _Yes -- my beautiful Raziel,_ Kain’s talons closed tight on Raziel as he savored those lingering convulsions. He touched, stroked, careful to avoid further disturbing the imbedded barbs, easing Raziel down from the height of bliss – and more subtly, reinforcing those mental pathways that associated Kain’s touch with pleasure. When at last the ecstasy faded, the pain reasserting itself once more, Kain’s talons slid to Raziel’s chest. The gripping texture of his palm caught at Raziel’s nipple, urging the winged vampire to sit a little more erect. Then talons encircled Raziel’s cock.

“Goran would be best, for your first is known to be too cautious to blunder into a difficult seige,” Kain murmured, though it might not matter a great deal. Any choice would do, so long as Zephon’s suspicions were assuaged. Kain’s caress was light, as delicate as possible with such talons, teasing at the neglected organ. “But how, my Raziel, shall you monitor those unwitting spies you conscript? Ensure that they do not report any truth which needs must be concealed?" Kain’s hand left Raziel’s chest, and he reached for one last needle.

"I ..." Kain's hand closed around his softened cock, the palm hard, talon-tips pricking at the vulnerable flesh. The pain had long since overwhelmed Raziel's erection, the conflicting sensations created by both the needles and Kain's touch sending him swinging from heaven to hell and back again. But the flesh now imprisoned in his Sire's grip was no less sensitive for it, in the end, and Raziel had to fight not to writhe at that touch--though whether into it or away, he did not even know anymore.

His talons skidding over Kain's armored skin, Raziel gripped and caressed blindly, trying to urge him onward. "I ... I cannot play sentry for our spies, and also retrieve those warriors who will be charged with leading the Dumahim astray. T-Tarrant may be the best suited for such a task ..." Assuming the capricious alien vampire agreed.

Such a delight to witness this: Raziel’s consuming need, the way it drove him, consumed him. The way Raziel was forced to claw for words, for vocalizations, as if the thickening haze of sensation kept them from him – there was no greater perfecting, not in all Kain’s painstakingly crafted world. _Just so, mine own. Your plans now divide your enemies, unravel their designs, turn their own strengths upon them, and exploit their weaknesses. You utilize your own resources to the utmost, squandering none._ In Kain’s hand, Raziel’s softened cock twitched, jerked with every stroke of corrugated palm, as if it were a live and tormented thing. A few moments more of caress, and Kain held it steady, the head exposed. Kain’s shoulders moved a little, under Raziel’s hands. And then a point of cold pricked at the tip, just above the tender slit.

 _Well done, my Raziel,_ Kain sent, the contact deep with approval, sanction, commendation. And then Kain administered his reward.

Raziel jerked, stiffened at the steely touch to the head of his cock. Did his best not to cringe, even as his head shook in mute negation. _... my lord ..._

Raziel's dread was a palpable thing, an acrid scent, and Kain savored that, too, as he slipped the needle into the glans. The barb was shorter than most of the others, and despite its diminuative size, Kain guided it with exquisite accuracy. But there was no annuling currant of pleasurably constrained electricity, nothing to cling to, nothing external to mute the agony -- save Kain; his encompassing aura, the enclosure of his arms, the indwelling convergence of the link between the two vampires.

The agony was precise, sharp, and all-encompassing as the barbed metal speared his semi-erect flesh. Raziel screamed hoarsely as the needle entered, each fraction of an inch a white-hot fire. His mind shrieked incoherently, quaking in pain and violation. He could not prevent the tiny abortive struggles to get away, regardless of Kain's hands imprisoning his flesh, his position pinned upon his cock.

It was eternal, this agony, leaving no room left for rational thought.

 _Here._ It was not precicely a sending, or not only that. Kain’s presence was everywhere, up inside Raziel, surrounding him as thickly as the storm made manifest and binding. Kain had staked claim upon Raziel’s mind, his unbeating heart, his immortal’s soul. He was in Raziel’s mouth, the taste of blood, black as the trackless abyss between the stars, in the ache as fang clicked upon fang in a hard, possessive osculation. _I am with you._

The needle’s ruby cap kissed helplessly soft skin.

Small, guttural hitched groans still escaped Raziel's throat even as he yielded to that kiss, to Kain's possession, his head falling back helplessly. Everything hurt--his wings, his back, his cock, even the soft internal parts of him--and he could do nothing to ease it, to escape from it. He could only endure it, and trust in Kain.

Despite the shrinking of his flesh, he forced himself to press forward, into Kain's hands. Mutely pleading for surcease from the pain, for the pleasure he knew his capricious Sire could grant, should Kain wish it. The needle threaded into his cock was a throbbing fiery pain, making Raziel acutely aware of every shift and pulse of blood through the delicate flesh.

There was something so purely right in Raziel like this – so utterly flawless. Kain could watch him in extremis for days, enthralled by this transcendence, this intensity. Here and now, with all trappings swept away, the core of Raziel seemed laid bare, like the steel of a blade drawn free of its scabbard.

If Kain’s enjoyment was a product of the Taint, he could not say; he knew only that there was no creature across all the universes who suffered so perfectly. Nor whom Kain more treasured.

 _Good boy,_ Kain Whispered, though again the sending was a wash of emotion far more than mundane words. For all that Kain wanted, _yearned_ to take up another needle, to find the softest skin, the sweetest cries, Raziel was ready, open, waiting. Arms wrapped close around Raziel, Kain moved smoothly to his knees, folding himself over Raziel, shoving the campstool aside with a sweep of one boot. “Hold tight to my shoulders,” Kain rumbled, not certain Raziel would even process the words. The soft furs of Raziel’s bedroll brushed the winged vampire’s heels, his buttocks, the small of his back – and then the embedded needles.

Raziel comprehended Kain's intentions more from his movements than his words, tightening his grip as his Sire shifted position. As the jeweled heads of the needles brushed the furs, he arched upwards frantically, taloned hands and legs clutching at Kain in a crushing grip that would have been instantly fatal for any human, or even a fledgling vampire. Thankfully, Kain was neither.

"... m-my lord ... please, I ..." He did not know entirely what he was pleading for, but even so his voice was hoarse, full of the broken edges of affliction and need.

Raziel’s wingtips fluttered against the furs, a convulsive shivering as he fought to cling closer, to keep his back from the cruelty of contact. Raziel’s strength had grown, and even now, bled and wounded, his talons cleaved long gouges through the subdermal armor across Kain’s back and shoulders, the tension of his thighs raised deep bruises over Kain’s hips. Against the sight of Raziel laid before him, though, the pain was a minor distraction – the dappled glory of cream skin splashed with blood and ink, the way the tails of the red blindfold brushed the ground, Raziel’s agonized expression all but void of thought, the bright crimson gemstone just below his navel, the inflammation and bloodflow of healing forcing erection long before pleasure warranted it, the way Kain’s cock made him spread so gapingly, so wantonly – oh, exquisite, exquisite.

Kain laid a talon across Raziel’s lips. “ _Master_ ,” he corrected, a purring rumble that lodged in Raziel’s bones, sought to make its mark upon Raziel’s soul. Then he moved, gripped Raziel’s hips, the chevron ridges that crossed his palms biting into soft skin. And slowly, with a torturous rocking motion, began to withdraw from the tightness of Raziel’s body.

The withdrawal of Kain's erect flesh was as agonizing as its original entrance had been; in the short time that had passed since Kain had laid claim, the soft flesh had healed, tightened around the hardness of that cock. Now, in its retreat, that hardness bruised and tore, subtle ridges catching against the tight-clasped and tender muscles of Raziel's passage.

Raziel keened, shaking and trying impotently to stop his Sire's movement, his sending an incoherent cry. _Master!_

Kain snarled, a thunder-growl of furious triumph. His talons drew scores over Raziel’s hips. Electricity hung in the air, a scent of ozone, crackling, sharp. As if answering Kain’s call, each of the barbs in Raziel’s flesh sparked with finely-threaded currant, a golden, metal vibration. A talons’ breadth of Kain’s slicked length slid free of Raziel’s clenching body, and Kain bent his head, sealing his bloodied mouth over Raziel’s. And then he thrust back in, driving the ridged thickness of his cock glancingly against the node of tender nerves, deep inside.

Lightning danced over Raziel's skin as he convulsed, crying out incoherently into the savage press of Kain's mouth in pain and ecstasy. His body had already been primed, sensitized by Kain's attentions; now it responded to both the hurt and the pleasure as one, jerking upward. Kain's cock delved deep, opening him with inexorable strength, and Raziel could not help but respond, lifting his hips to accept, to welcome it, even as the needles vibrated with electric current and dug deep, a silent goad for Raziel to cling harder, to twine himself around his sire with desperate strength.

Kain's mouth upon his, his hands upon his back and hips, Kain's marks upon his flesh and his cock held inside Raziel's body, the link between them open and echoing in pain and satisfaction and slow-building delight ... it was impossible to think, and harder still for Raziel to remember where he ended and his sire began ....

 _Yes…_ the affirmation was as deep as the broadening link between them, a sensation of merging, of amalgamation, of unity. It had always been this way – something of Raziel’s soul had a harbor within Kain’s, a place from whence it had been excised, a place where it fit once more, without gap or abrasion. But there was a… difference this time; the presence of five other subsumed fragments, a rising as they stirred.

 _Raziel!_ The stony muscles of Kain’s flanks hunched, rippled as he thrust, a slow and slicked convergence, easier by fractions as internal wounds bled and healed. Kain bit at Raziel’s mouth, tongue slicking deep, bringing with it the taste of blood as old as earth and sky.

With each movement the pleasure built, transmuting pain into something more, something sharp-edged and bloody and infinitely glorious. Raziel growled into Kain's mouth, clinging in need instead of desperation as he lifted himself into each hard thrust, opening himself to be utterly claimed. It did not matter how he writhed; Kain's erect flesh was broad and deep, ridges rubbing relentlessly against the nerves inside him with each deep stroke. His wings tried to unfurl as the pleasure deepened, coiling tighter and driving them onward, and even the presence of the barbed adornments in his flesh could not prevent them from mantling about them both, the opaque membranes glowing in the lantern-light.

Deeper, the stirring within Raziel's soul seemed to spread, a secret darkness that unfurled upward as something reached outward, touched the golden haze of ecstatic agony Kain and Raziel both shared.

 _Mine…_ One deep thrust, and Kain freed a hand from Raziel’s hip, the harsh texture of his palm closing instead around Raziel’s maltreated cock, squeezing, stroking. Electrical change crawled over Raziel’s sensitive skin, Kain’s touch alone drawing voltaic potential after it. And then Kain’s talon clicked against the ruby-tipped barb at the head of Raziel’s cock. _…always so beautiful._ The discharge this time was stronger, still finely woven, but direct.

Raziel arched upward with a choked sound as the current arced through his erect flesh. "Nngh! Ka--ah! Kain!" He could not seem to suppress the near-constant shaking of his body, overstimulated by both pleasure and the electric charge Kain was applying to his flesh. The pleasure was blinding--the pain, almost equally so. Frantic with need, and deprived of any other option, he pulled away from Kain's kiss and bit down savagely into the meat of his sire's shoulder in an attempt to muffle his cries.

Another thrust inward, and another squeeze to his aching flesh; behind the blindfold, Raziel's eyes were squeezed shut in helpless need.

Raziel’s fangs sliced through leathery skin, skidded on slick subdermal plates, then sank through, opening thick-welling arteries. If Raziel sought some way to stabilize himself, to ground himself, his effort was in vain -- blood like syrup flooded his mouth with the iron of cleaved metal, the heady force of age and puissance. Kain’s hand must have left his cock – though the grazing stroke of his stomach brushed Raziel’s organ with every grinding instroke – for talons splayed out across Raziel’s back, touching upon half a dozen of the imbedded barbs. Current, carefully calibrated, surged forth.

Raziel was so beautifully tight, the constant quaking translating to deep internal muscles, rendering every stroke a hot golden bliss. Every helpless cry, each unconscious arch of wing and claw of talon, served only to ratchet that pleasure higher, harder. So very close….

Pure power flowed over his tongue and down his throat, iron-hot and electric, surging around him, within and without. It was too much, the complete potence of the Balance Guardian crashing over them both like a tsunami until he could feel nothing else, smell or taste or touch nothing else but Kain. Raziel jerked, pulling himself away from the touch, only to impale himself once more upon Kain's hard flesh, releasing his bite with a hoarse cry. Eyes bleeding white beneath the darkness of the blindfold, his own power roused in reponse to Kain's own, surging out towards the other vampire to twine and devour and purify. And still he needed more--needed to feel Kain's seed in him, desired his sire's satisfaction as much as his own.

It was like cracking through a thin shell of ice, like falling into the swift cold flow of a hidden river. For a single overwhelming instant, an eternity, the broken balance of the world itself tore open before Raziel, unfolded within him. Energy lines – molten or gossamer, broad as the sky or thin as threads -- teemed listlessly, stagnating with little direction by the other pillars. Thousands upon thousands of times they’d been coaxed and forced and webbed back into their proper placement, reviving vast forests one tree at a time, defying disease, balancing populations. The sum total of power engaged in holding the planet together was monstrous. Yet over the course of years or decades, those lines fell to decay once more, always requiring more attention, more care.

Kain gasped, his head thrown back, eyes widening as a nimbus flared around them, a seeking corona of light that rimmed his hands, vined around his hips. The white haze was warm, somehow sweet in its purity, painless and pellucid. The ache that answered it was centered in Kain’s chest – a yearning, a trembling upon the precipice of need, an… awareness of loss.

But Kain knew need, knew want, knew how to take. Lunging forward, Kain buried himself deeply, and in the same motion drove Raziel down upon the furs. The jolt rocketed through every needle in the muscles of Raziel’s wings, impaling them to the hilt, discharging a hard pulse of electricity. “ _Now, my Raziel! _”__

Still reeling from the enormity of the awareness thrust upon him, Raziel had no defense against his sire's command. Kain's hard flesh thrust deep, penetrating as current jerked through every fiber of muscle and bone, making them contract and spasm in purest masochistic ecstasy--and he came with a scream of defiance and need as hoarse as a falcon's cry, convulsing.

Every limb shuddered painfully as he found his release: his hands spasming, his wings beating a little against the air, as if to defy the needles that still adorned them. His seed, unconstrained by the needle that impaled his cock, was slick and hot against unyielding flesh of Kain's abdomen. And Raziel himself was blinded, thrust beyond awareness by ecstasy as his climax shook him to the core, wracked him with sensation.

Raziel’s soul – and with it, his brethren – found its home, shaking Kain with the force of the reunion, filling him as surely as he filled Raziel. The white nimbus of power, the purified essence of the Reaver, of Raziel’s long-mad spirit, clung close about them both. Against that completion, even the igneous golden haze of his pleasure, every minute thrust a shot of white-hot bliss, seemed remote. Kain came with a roar, with exultation, forcing come silvered with metals deep into Raziel’s belly in thick, jolting pulses.

They might have abided there, like that, for minutes, or an hour, the fragments of a single soul rejoined. But it wasn’t right to have that completeness, it wasn’t true, not anymore. Slowly, very slowly, the convergence faded, eased, attenuated, the lingering sensation of hollowness making Kain feel... almost fragile, like the shell of an egg, void of its contents. Kain at last pushed himself up on his elbows, careful not to pin Raziel’s still wide-spread wings. He bent his head, found Raziel’s mouth, kissed – softly, reverentially – waiting for his cock to soften sufficiently to withdraw.

Dazed and limp in the aftermath, his limbs still trembling finely, Raziel turned his head and kissed back blindly. The tidal surge of power that had accompanied their mutual pleasure had receded, and in doing so had also seemingly left him strengthless; his hand shook embarrassingly as he reached upward, touching Kain's shoulder, his face, taloned fingers threading into silver strands. Reassuring himself that his sire was real, no golem or illusion to vanish in a moment's inattention.

"...master..." The word was a mere husk of a sound.

Kain rumbled deeply, rewarding the whisper against his mouth with blood, slicked into Raziel’s mouth from bitten tongue. The receding intensity of the link between them echoed his satisfaction, his satiation… and his pride. At last, though, Kain withdrew. Slowly, Kain bent his head to the tremulous stroking – or perhaps just moved enough to look down, to better gauge a delicate procedure, for his palm cupped Raziel’s cock, ever so lightly. “Easy, mine own,” he whispered, carefully slipping the very tip of a talon under the place where copper pierced stone, now made slick with silver-metallic seed. The barbs withdrew, drawing up into the hollow shaft of the needle, and then Kain cautiously guided the shaft from Raziel’s body.

Raziel's lips peeled back in a grimace of pain as the needle was withdrawn from his soft flesh, but did not protest; when it was gone, he let himself relax with a long and silent breath, the tiny wound vanishing within moments and taking the pain with it.

"Why ... did you suddenly want this?" he murmured, still luxuriating in the ability to touch Kain as he wished, the singular focus of his sire's attentions. Had jealousy driven his too-young sire to stake his claim upon Raziel? Or was it simple hedonism that had prompted such ... inventiveness?

Wry amusement colored the link, a gossamer and so-familiar caress. “How could I not?” Kain asked, giving Raziel’s cock one last fond stroke as he satisfied himself that the wound was swiftly healed. He laid the needle aside, the purple-black blood glistening against the copper. Kain tilted his head slightly, thoughtfully, even as he set his hands at Raziel’s hips. His Raziel – his headstrong, willful, pertinacious scion. “Would you have attended me, otherwise?” Kain asked, and with a gradual rocking motion, began to withdraw from Raziel.

Raziel groaned low in his throat, an instinctive protest, as he felt Kain's erection pull free. "I al--always heed your counsel, Kain." Though he did not always follow it, especially if it involved his too-young sire running headlong into the arms of the Hylden. *That* lesson had been taught very well indeed. He tried to gather his sluggish thoughts in order; it was surprisingly difficult. "Is that what this was about? You felt that I had been ... inattentive?"

“Hn,” Kain moved closer, straddling, and cupped Raziel’s blindfolded visage in his long talons, smoothing across Raziel’s brow, newly creased in worry. Always thinking too much. One hand on the winged vampire’s shoulder, Kain eased Raziel to a sitting position, steadying him. “Mayhap I simply find waiting for you… a harder task than ever I would have imagined,” Kain rumbled, nipping at a smear of blood still upon Raziel’s throat. He reached for the jeweled spurs still imbedded in the thick muscles of Raziel’s wings.

Waiting? Raziel's brows arched underneath the concealing drape in puzzlement, not quite understanding. If anything, he thought it was he that was still waiting--waiting for this illusion to become reality, and his too-young and impetuous Kain to take up his mantle and become his Sire, and the Scion of Balance in truth.

His stroking fingers slipped downward, curling around the strong line of that neck. Raziel inhaled deep, savoring the lingering scent of his Sire, somehow deeper, richer, weathered like lightning-struck granite. "Waiting ... " A sardonic, sad expression, not quite a smile, touched that severe mouth. "I shall always be at your side, my lord." In one form or another ....

Kain’s talons touched upon one needle and paused, a near-unnoticeable hitch. Then he set to disengaging the barbs. One shaft, then another, slipped free, spreading a tingling relief through the tormented muscle. “Do not make promises you cannot keep,” Kain said after a moment, in echo of Raziel’s own long-ago sentiment, an expression that Raziel might have recognized twisting his lips. The possibilities of the future were twisting and varied, but all those Kain had witnessed dead-ended in exactly the same place. A careful tug revealed that the barbs of one needle had malfunctioned, becoming stuck, and Kain set to disengaging the central insert manually, touch certain but delicate.

His flesh had long since sealed itself around the barbed needles, which did not make Kain's task any easier. Raziel half-furled his wings, holding them uncertainly away from his body, doing his best to mask the residual shivering of the fine-grained skin.

" ... do not worry, Kain. There are some things that transcend simple oaths," Raziel said softly, knowing it was a reassurance that his too-young sire could not understand ... not yet. But the permutations of fate were far more inevitable than words.

Kain rumbled, a contemplative sound, but focused on drawing the barbed section out of the hollow shaft. The rest of the needle slipped out smoothly, as did the next needle, and the next. Kain laid them each aside, until he could pass his hand over bare and healed skin, stroking, exploring, just lightly with his razor-edged palm, and then harder with the smooth back of his hand. Faint tingles of electrical charge crawled over the platinum-pale flesh, seeking even the smallest mote of metal to fix upon. _Any fragments?_ For if a barb had broken off inside, it would surely hamper movement for a long time to come. The needles had all seemed whole, but in this matter, Kain needed to be certain.

Raziel drew in a deep breath, letting his lungs expand, feeling the stretch of muscle across his chest and back as he unfurled his wings once more, this time to their full extension. The tip of one wing brushed one wall of the tent as he focused on the play of his flight muscles, frowning a little in concentration as he focused on their action, checking for aches or pains. _I do not feel any ..._ he sent thoughtfully, furling them slowly. As before, the wounds had healed with vampiric speed, leaving only the fading scars of older, more grievous wounds to mar the pale surfaces of his wings.

He arched a little into the slight prickling current, still too sated to truly respond. Curling taloned fingers into the disordered strands of Kain's silvery mane, he tilted his head. _And this?_ Raziel asked, lifting his free hand toward the drape still bound across his eyes.

Though the flight muscles shivered a little under Kain’s hand, little aftershocks of pleasure and sensitized reflex, Raziel did not flinch from the touch. Kain noted that, with pleasure. _Not yet,_ Kain’s Whisper was a dark purr deep inside Raziel’s mind. He wrapped his arms around Raziel’s waist and arrogantly bore him to the furs once more, this time upon his side, overriding any attempt at protest. And then where was a greater distraction, for Kain cupped the back of Raziel’s head, guiding him to a juncture in the armor that corded his throat, a thinner place. _Drink, my Raziel._

Growling low in fierce satisfaction, Raziel needed no second invitation. He curled his fingers into his sire's armored skin, folding his wings tight and following Kain's guiding hand. He laid an open-mouthed, reverant kiss upon the softer skin of Kain's throat, letting his anticipatory hunger build--then bit deep and drank.

The blood was thick over his tongue, and electric with power. It almost hurt to swallow, that power, and yet he still needed more, craved it.

Kain had taken more than a little of Raziel’s own vitae – perhaps more than advisable, even considering Raziel’s full age. The few mouthfuls offered up as bribe or spur over the past few hours had altered that inequity little. It was a testament to the winged vampire’s will that he had compelled the blood hunger to remain quiescent this long. The twin points of pain were minor, negligible as the shallow scores drawn by Raziel’s talons as his hands tightened instinctively. The deep internal itch as Kain’s flesh sealed around those fangs, opening again with every movement as Raziel swallowed, was a familiar discomfort, a sensation irrevocably linked with the handful of moments after Raziel’s rebirth. Reassuring, in a way. A deep rumble built in Kain’s chest as he stroked over Raziel’s hair, the folded leather of his furled wings.

No longer distracted by pain or the necessity of thinking through it, Raziel's Hunger become an all-encompassing, devouring thing. The blood he drank, thick as honey, more potent than the finest firewine, only spurred him onward, made him swallow each mouthful with greedy satisfaction. Each swallow sent a surge of heat through him, life and power distilled down to its base essence, rippling outward from the base of his belly to every aching fiber of his being.

Unable to speak, he reached out for their link, sending wordless need and gratitude and hungry pleasure. He knew he should be careful, should not drain a too-young Kain too deep ... but with such heady vitae before him, he could not tear himself away.

Kain continued to permit the suckling draw, long past the point at which a young vampire might have sunk to torpor, past the point that would have left a new-risen fledgling collapsing into ash. The corner of his mouth turned up faintly: it was clearly evident when Raziel’s direct physical need was satisfied. Once one knew what to look for in another vampire, in aura and in skintone, the satiation point was not difficult to determine. But even with repletion, the linked sending of need and want faded not at all. Fledglings sometimes developed that trick, in effort to take more than they strictly needed.

By rights, Kain should simply dislocate Raziel’s jaw, drag him away, locate a cane or bullwhip for correction… but he found himself allowing the feeding, with something like bemusement. Shortly, though, a sensation of lassitude began to gather in his limbs. _Enough, Raziel,_ he instructed firmly.

Raziel was no fledgling, maddened by blood-hunger and their own desires. At Kain's command, he stopped immediately, a new belated concern creeping into his satiated pleasure. _Kain ... are you well?_ Had he taken too much? He had not fed so freely, so desperately from his sire, in ... longer than he could remember. He lifted his head, his talons once again going to trace the line of Kain's jaw, his mouth, as if he could tell the other vampire's condition through touch alone. But it was the link between them that his attention was truly upon; pushing his sense of Kain outward, feeling for signs for weakness or hunger.

The twin seeping wounds at the juncture of Kain’s shoulder and throat sealed over, somewhat sluggishly. _Of course,_ the confirmation was very faintly amused; Kain lifted his head, nipping a little at Raziel’s talons as they scraped over his mouth. With the sudden sharpening of Raziel’s attention upon him, however, Kain paused, a scarce-noticeable hitch in motion.

There was some minor exhaustion in Kain’s aura, but Raziel was looking specifically for the unusual, and there was... something else. Something strange, a broadening power draw, as if Kain were maintaining or even reinforcing magics of some potency…

Kain’s palm slid distractingly over Raziel’s flank to his back, under soft folds of membranous leather, cupping the tender juncture of those wings. The tips of his nails found the sensitive places, stroking there idly. Shifting a little, Kain fit himself closer against Raziel’s form, tucking his chin against the crown of the winged vampire’s head, so that his mouth and nose pressed close against Kain’s collarbone in the close embrace Kain permitted no other. “I fed well – in anticipation,” Kain admitted, a little wryly, and the words seemed true enough.

Raziel frowned a little, his concern morphing into a certain amount of puzzlement as he felt that outflow of magic ... then his concentration wavered under Kain's attentions. He growled low in his throat, a guttural sound of pleasure as Kain's talons settled at the base of his wings, stroking. There was the fleeting thought that he should not allow this younger Kain to treat him like a fledgling, and that the younger vampire would be insufferable afterwards ... but a lingering lassitude made him stay where he was. It was a guilty pleasure, perhaps ... but he would enjoy it while he still could.

"Still always a step ahead, I see ..." he murmured.

Kain, perhaps, had his own reasons for savoring every moment of contact, of slow, stroking touch, of silken skin under his talons. His sulphur-gold eyes slid closed; he made no move to disentangle their bodies. “One can but try,” he agreed quietly.


End file.
